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The Works of 

NathanielHawthorne 


The Marble Faun 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK 
































THE MARBLE FAUN 


OR 

THE ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI 


BY 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

*t 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 

KATHARINE LEE BATES 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN WELLESLEY COLLEGE 


VOL. I 


NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

T 'vo Copies R ecsiveo 

AUG. 20 1902 

Copyright entry 
it • i ^0*^ 
C> ASS^ CLXXo. No. 

COPY 8. 

m • m mmm t m 9, m m 


Copyright, 1902, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Introduction. 


. 


V 

Preface . 

CHAPTER 




xxiii 

I. 

Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello 




i 

II. 

The Faun . 




7 

III. 

Subterranean Reminiscences 




14 

IV. 

The Spectre of the Catacomb . 




21 

V. 

Miriam’s Studio .... 




30 

VI. 

The Virgin’s Shrine . 




43 

VII. 

Beatrice. 




53 

VIII. 

The Suburban Villa . 




60 

IX. 

The Faun and the Nymph . 




66 

X. 

The Sylvan Dance 




73 

XI. 

Fragmentary Sentences 




80 

, XII. 

A Stroll on the Pincian . 




86 

XIII. 

A Sculptor’s Studio . 




99 

XIV. 

Cleopatra . 




108 

XV. 

An Esthetic Company 




ii 5 

XVI. 

A Moonlight Ramble . 




125 

XVII. 

Miriam’s Trouble 




J 35 

XVIII. 

On the Edge of a Precipice 




142 

XIX. 

The Faun’s Transformation 
iii 


• 

• 

152 








CONTENTS 


iv 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XX. The Burial Chant. 158 

XXI. The Dead Capuchin.166 

XXII. The Medici Gardens. 174 

XXIII. Miriam and Hilda.180 

XXIV. The Tower among the Apennines . . .190 

XXV. Sunshine.197 





INTRODUCTION 


From the spring of 1850 to the spring of 1853 
Hawthorne published seven books, — The Scarlet Letter, 
written at Salem, The House of the Seven Gables and A 
Wonder-Book , both written at Lenox, The Snow Image , 
a collection of tales and sketches of earlier date, The 
Blithedale Romance , written at West Newton, Life of 
Franklin Pierce and Tanglewood Tales , both written at 
Concord. After these seven books came seven years of 
silence. The one book in the list unworthy of Haw¬ 
thorne, the campaign biography, was the only one which 
brought him a rich financial reward. As soon as Pierce 
became President, he appointed Hawthorne to the 
Liverpool consulate, and the debt-burdened, overworked 
romancer, putting by a finer instinct, accepted the posi¬ 
tion. In the middle of October, 1852, Hawthorne had 
written to his old Bowdoin friend, Horatio Bridge: — 

“ I did not send you the ‘ Life of Pierce,’ not consid¬ 
ering it fairly one of my literary productions. 

“ I was terribly reluctant to undertake this work, and 
tried to persuade Pierce — both by letter and viva voce — 
that I could not perform it so well as many others; but 
he thought differently; and, of course, after a friendship 
of thirty years, it was impossible to refuse my best efforts 
in his behalf at this — the great pinch of his life. . . . 

“ Before undertaking it, I made an inward resolution 
that I would accept no office from him; but, to say the 
truth, I doubt whether it would not be rather folly than 
heroism to adhere to this purpose in case he should offer 
me anything particularly good. We shall see. A for¬ 
eign mission I could not afford to take. The consulship 
at Liverpool I might.” 

This appointment was then one of the most lucrative 
in the Presidential gift, and Hawthorne’s friends hoped 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 


that he would be able, during his few years of service, 
to lay by enough money to assure his future indepen¬ 
dence. The emoluments of the office, which varied with 
the number of the consular fees, had run, during the in¬ 
cumbency of Hawthorne’s predecessor, as high as fif¬ 
teen thousand dollars in a single year, but in the middle 
of Hawthorne’s term Congress placed the United States 
consuls on a salaried basis, thus greatly reducing the 
gains of the Liverpool consulate. Hawthorne had pro¬ 
tested against the bill, but he accepted its passage man¬ 
fully : — 

“ It would seem to be a desirable thing enough that I 
should have had a sufficient income to live comfortably 
upon for the rest of my life, without the necessity of 
labor; but, on the other hand, I might have sunk pre¬ 
maturely into intellectual sluggishness — which now 
there will be no danger of my doing; though, with a 
house and land of my own, and a good little sum at inter¬ 
est beside, I need not be under very great anxiety for 
the future. When I contrast my present situation with 
what it was five years ago, I see a vast deal to be thank¬ 
ful for; and I still hope to thrive by my legitimate in¬ 
strument — the pen. . . . And, to say the truth, I had 
rather not be too prosperous. It may be superstition, 
but it seems to me that the bitter is very apt to come 
with the sweet; and bright sunshine casts a dark shadow. 
So I content myself with a moderate portion of sugar, 
and about as much sunshine as that of an English sum¬ 
mer’s day.” 

When Hawthorne sailed for England, in July, 1853, 
he had but eleven years of life remaining, and the last 
of these, a period of wasting illness, may be counted out 
from his years of literary possibility. Of the single dec¬ 
ade of strength still allotted to the great romancer, one- 
half was smothered in the Liverpool consulate. 

Hawthorne disliked Liverpool with the usual intensity 
of his dislikes, — a “ black and miserable hole,” “ smoky, 
noisy, dirty, pestilential,” “ the most disagreeable city in 
England,” and he expressed his disgust to Englishmen 
with a frankness equal to their own. His official duties 


INTRODUCTION 


Vll 


were “irksome beyond expression” to him, although he 
seems to have discharged them with thoroughness and 
generosity. He left his family at nine in the morning 
and returned at five, the rest of his day being blotted 
out in that “dusky and stifled chamber,” of which, 
“from first to last,” he hated the very sight As his 
pen lost its magic by candlelight, his evenings were not 
spent at his desk nor, to any considerable degree, in 
social intercourse outside his home. His books had pre¬ 
ceded him to England, he was already famous there, 
and society was eager to welcome him; but he was still 
that Hawthorne who, some ten years earlier, had dreaded 
the “necessity” of dining with Longfellow, confiding to 
the Note-Books: “I have an almost miraculous power 
of escaping from necessities of this kind. Destiny itself 
has often been worsted in the attempt to get me out to 
dinner.” He declined far more invitations in England 
than he accepted, yet he was compelled by his consular 
position to dine out and make speeches occasionally, 
even submitting to “ the last abomination ” of a white 
cravat. The greater was the admiration displayed by 
his hosts and their guests for the American writer, the 
more uncomfortable he found himself. He discovered 
that he could not “ stand incense.” Mr. Tupper greeted 
him with, “ Oh, great Scarlet Letter ! ” He wrote Mr. 
Tupper down an “ass of asses.” 

Various suggestions for English romances flitted 
about dim nooks of Hawthorne’s mind during these 
weary years, but his spirit, subdued to what it worked 
in, was out of tune for literature. That blight and 
torpor which benumbed his creative faculties while he 
held the surveyorship of the port of Salem seem to have 
returned upon the incumbent of the Liverpool consulate. 
He resigned in June of 1858 and, after a few weeks in 
London, went by way of Paris and Marseilles to Italy, 
where he passed two Roman winters and a happy 
Florentine summer. When Hawthorne returned to 
England, in the spring of 1859, his Marble Faun was 
planned and partly written. With his freedom from 
official routine, the creative impulse had revived. 


INTRODUCTION 


viii 

The Marble Faun , Hawthorne’s last completed 
romance, is the only adequate fruit of those seven years 
abroad. Quiet and length of days might have enabled 
him to garner more than that one golden sheaf from the 
fields of memory, but he came home to a country torn 
by the bewilderments and agonies of civil war. When 
he gathered material from his English Note-Books for 
the series of descriptive articles entitled Our Old Home , 
he confessed in the preface to his own disappointment: — 

“ I once hoped, indeed, that so slight a volume would 
not be all that I might write. These and other sketches, 
with which, in a somewhat rougher form than I have 
given them here, my Journal was copiously filled, were 
intended for the side-scenes and backgrounds and exte¬ 
rior adornment of a work of fiction of which the plan 
had imperfectly developed itself in my mind, and into 
which I ambitiously proposed to convey more of various 
modes of truth than I could have grasped by a direct 
effort. Of course, I should not mention this abortive 
project, only that it has been utterly thrown aside and 
will never now be accomplished. The Present, the 
Intermediate, the Actual, has proved too much for me. 
It takes away not only my scanty faculty, but even my 
desire for imaginative composition, and leaves me sadly 
content to scatter a thousand peaceful fantasies upon 
the hurricane that is sweeping us, all along with it, pos¬ 
sibly, into a Limbo where our nation and its polity may 
be as literally the fragments of a shattered dream as my 
unwritten Romance.” 

The Ma 7 'ble Faun stands, then, for the only accom¬ 
plished work of imagination in what was approximately, 
dating from the suppressed Fanshawe of 1828, the last 
third of Hawthorne’s life as an author. A new book 
from his hand had been awaited long. It was but natu¬ 
ral that much should have been demanded from it, — 
that it should have met a more rigorous criticism than 
the three American romances. The first verdict was in 
the key of disappointment. “The thing is a failure,” 
said Hawthorne. During those early weeks when 
puzzled and expostulatory reviews were raining in, the 


INTRODUCTION 


IX 


author, depressed and patient, struck his little daughter 
Rose “ as a good deal like an innocent prisoner at the 
bar.” Posterity has made friends with the book, and 
The Marble Faim is perhaps more often read to-day 
than any other of Hawthorne’s writings, though the 
popular sale is due, in no small degree, to the tourist 
demand. No good American visits Rome without it. 
Critical opinion is not yet agreed, however, upon its 
rank among Hawthorne’s romances. By some it is 
accounted his masterpiece; others, as Mr. James, place 
it below its three predecessors; and still others would 
range it beneath The Scarlet Letter and The House of 
the Seven Gables , but above The Blithedale Romance. 
It is idle to attempt to grade four such vital and various 
works on any numerical scale of excellence, but it may 
be reasonable to ask in what ways The Marble Faun is 
affiliated with these foregoing fictions. Have the seven 
years of foreign life set the Italian story far apart from 
the New England trio ? 

Hawthorne was preeminently a musing, sequestered 
genius. His description of Arthur Dimmesdale is the 
best description of himself: “Notwithstanding his high 
native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an 
air about this young minister, — an apprehensive, a star¬ 
tled, a half-frightened look, — as of a being who felt 
himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of 
human existence, and could only be at ease in some 
seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties 
would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus 
kept himself simple and childlike; coming forth, when 
occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy 
purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected 
them like the speech of an angel.” 

Hawthorne needed seclusion not merely from hu¬ 
manity, but from too great a number and variety of such 
things as are products of human achievement and monu¬ 
ments of human history. In the British Museum his 
heart suffered such “pain and woe” that he wished 
“ the whole Past might be swept away, and each genera¬ 
tion compelled to bury and destroy whatever it had pro- 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


duced, before being permitted to leave the stage.” In 
Italy he records his satisfaction at having “ seen the 
pope, because now he may be crossed out of the list of 
sights to be seen.” Even in the quiet village of Concord, 
he is overwhelmed by the infinity of being. “ Life now 
swells and heaves beneath me like a brim-full ocean,” 
he wrote, “ and the endeavor to comprise any portion of 
it in words is like trying to dip up the ocean in a goblet.” 
His imagination naturally crystallized about some em¬ 
blem,— a mirror, a serpent, a butterfly, a jewel. The 
scarlet letter was a symbol that would not let him go. 
His first romance, projected against the sombre Puritan 
background, glows throughout with the terrible passion 
of this token at its heart. The swift successive scenes, 
Hester pilloried in the thronged market-place with the 
pale young clergyman exhorting her from the balcony 
above; the misshapen man of skill confronting her with 
baleful smile in her prison cell; the elf-child dancing like 
a jet of flame through the governor’s hall; the leech 
gazing with a ghastly rapture on the sleeping clergy¬ 
man’s uncovered breast; that strange, midnight group, 
“the minister, with his hand over his heart, and Hester 
Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her 
bosom, and little Pearl, herself a symbol,” standing on 
the shameful platform under the sudden meteoric gleam ; 
the meeting in the forest; the parting on the scaffold; — 
all these pass before us as if painted by fire on the dark. 
The figures of the tragedy are human, but not earthly. 
They are spirits already illumined by the Judgment glare. 
Hawthorne takes up the tragedy at the point where most 
writers would have dropped it. “ The mere facts of 
guilt,” he elsewhere wrote, “ are of little value except to 
the gossip and the tipstaff; but how the wounded and 
the wounding soul bear themselves after the crisis, that 
is one of the needful lessons of life.” 

Hawthorne’s second romance, The House of the Seven 
Gables , though set in a frame of homely realism, is essen¬ 
tially no less a vision than The Scarlet Letter. The one 
is flashed upon the reader in lurid light; the other is 
wrought of soft gray shadow. The antique mansion, 


INTRODUCTION 


xi 


“this desolate, decaying, gusty, rusty, old house of the 
Pyncheon family,” is itself an emblem. The curse 
broods over it, time has muffled it with moss and weeds, 
ghosts are its familiar tenants. The tale is not told so 
intensely as was its predecessor. The narrative moves 
slowly and often abandons the method of direct relation 
for suggestion, question, exclamation, hypothesis, infer¬ 
ence. The meditative element is marked. The story 
sometimes melts into revery. Humor, irony, compassion 
play in and out of the delicately modulated sentences. 
For the dancing steps of little Pearl we have the fresh 
and winsome presence of Phoebe, yet the maiden whose 
subtler fragrance fills the Seven Gables is the long-since- 
faded Alice. Here again Hawthorne, as Mr. Gates has 
said, “dreams of beauty in terms of the ten command¬ 
ments.” The core of the romance is the after-life of 
evil in this world. 

Blithedale differs fundamentally from these others. 
Hawthorne, even to the end of his life, longed to write 
a “genial” book, a “sunshiny” book. He congratulated 
himself that The House of the Seven Gables was less 
gloomy than its forerunner. He seems to have sympa¬ 
thized with the desire of his loyal friend, George S. Hil¬ 
lard, who wrote expressing a half-reluctant admiration 
for “the weird and sad strain which breathes from ‘The 
Scarlet Letter ’ ” : — 

“ I think it will take a place in our literature among 
the highest efforts of what may be called the Tragic 
Muse of fiction. You are, intellectually speaking, quite 
a puzzle to me. How comes it that with so thoroughly 
healthy an organization as you have, you have such a 
taste for the morbid anatomy of the human heart, and 
such knowledge of it, too ? I should fancy from your 
books that you were burdened with secret sorrow; that 
you had some blue chamber in your soul, into which you 
hardly dared to enter yourself; but when I see you, you 
give me the impression of a man as healthy as Adam 
was in Paradise. For my own taste, I could wish that 
you would dwell more in the sun, and converse more 
with cheerful thoughts and lightsome images.” 


Xll 


INTRODUCTION 


The Blithedale Romance has a gladsome title, which 
sheds, from the outset, a pleasantness over the book. 
In this one case the title does not embody the suggestion 
and centre of the story. The name calls up a picture of 
that green New England Arcady wherein some six or 
seven characters play out their summer roles. It is a 
frank drama of hearts, which amounts to genuine trag¬ 
edy, because it has to do with actual people. The mes¬ 
meric element hardly sheds a passing glamour. The 
reader quickly gets at the secret of the Veiled Lady and 
Old Moody, and is not daunted by the gold band across 
Westervelt’s upper teeth. Here, for once, Hawthorne 
seems to have miscalculated means and effect. The 
story has power in its main situation and is charmingly 
told throughout, but not in Hawthorne’s customary way. 
This romance abounds in bookish allusions, — to Dante’s 
ghostly wood, to the forest of Arden, to the Faery Queen , 
to Coleridge, to Swedenborg, to Burns, to King Charles, 
to Robinson Crusoe, to Falstaff, to Michael Scott, to 
Medusa, Andromeda, Pandora. Coverdale reads Emer¬ 
son’s Essays , The Dial , Carlyle’s Heroes , George Sand’s 
novels, Fourier’s works. He uses a French phrase on 
occasion and quotes Virgil to Silas Foster. 

If Hawthorne had not written Blithedale , we should 
hardly call it Hawthornesque. We miss that artful 
device of emphasis by repetition which decked out Little 
Pearl like a scarlet letter, and caricatured in the Pyn- 
cheon fowls the withered aristocracy of a dwindled, an¬ 
cient race. We are ill at ease in full-witted society. 
Not Hester, whose “imagination was somewhat affected 
... by the strange and solitary anguish of her life,” 
not Dimmesdale, whose “ nerve seemed absolutely de¬ 
stroyed,” whose “moral force was abased into more than 
childish weakness,” whose intellectual faculties “ had 
perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only 
could have given them,” not Chillingworth, “ a mortal 
man, with once a human heart, become a fiend,” would 
be pronounced sane by an expert. And on Hawthorne’s 
own authority, poor, gaunt, uncouth, magnanimous Miss 
Hepzibah “ had grown to be a kind of lunatic,” Clifford 


INTRODUCTION 


xiii 

was “ partly crazy, and partly imbecile,” even Chanti¬ 
cleer and his two wives had become “a little crack- 
brained.” Hawthorne’s visionary fictions need such a 
borderland. Those strange figures that dwell in a dim 
shadow of crime and curse must be moved by forces 
more occult than reason. Priscilla’s clairvoyance is of 
a different order. The essential distinction between 
Blithe dale and the earlier romances is that the one is of 
the world visible, the others of the life everlasting. 
Hawthorne was, in a sense, true Transcendentalist. His 
Note-Books abound in studies of reflections, shadows, 
clouds. He longs to tread above the crust of the earth, 
to climb into the sky. On Concord River, one Septem¬ 
ber day in 1842, he pored over the images glassed in the 
tranquil stream: — 

“ I have never elsewhere had such an opportunity to 
observe how much more beautiful reflection is than what 
we call reality. The sky and the clustering foliage on 
either hand, and the effect of sunlight, as it found its 
way through the shade, giving lightsome hues in contrast 
with the quiet depth of the prevailing tints, — all these 
seemed unsurpassably beautiful when beheld in upper 
air. But on gazing downward, there they were, the 
same even to the minutest particular, yet arrayed in 
ideal beauty, which satisfied the spirit incomparably 
more than the actual scene. I am half convinced that 
the reflection is indeed the reality, the real thing which 
Nature imperfectly images to our grosser sense. At 
any rate, the disembodied shadow is nearest to the 
soul.” 

The title of The Marble Faun connects it with the two 
earlier fictions in so far as the romance is named from 
that which suggested it. The French and Italian Note- 
Books reveal, no less than the English, a frequent mood 
of repletion and distaste. It was the necessity of Haw¬ 
thorne’s genius, as of Emerson’s, to eat and not be eaten, 
— to assimilate what he saw, to reduce objects to impres¬ 
sions, and transmute life into literature; but upon him, as 
upon Emerson, the foreign demand was too heteroge¬ 
neous, multitudinous, incessant. As with Emerson, too, 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


his New England love of cleanliness and freshness was 
continually affronted. This “Artist of the Beautiful,” 
who in the Salem days had been so cheered by a “ wan¬ 
dering flock of snowbirds,” or the “ gush of violets along 
a woodpath,” hated the “dirt and squalor” of Italian 
cities, and sickened before the chapel frescoes, “ poor, 
fouled relics, looking as if the Devil had been rubbing and 
scrubbing them for centuries in spite against .the saints.” 
Yet although to his overtaxed spirit the masterpieces of 
classic sculpture and mediaeval painting were often 
“ heavily burdensome,” the Faun of Praxiteles at once 
beckoned to his imagination. His Italian Journal of 
April 18, 1858, shows his immediate response to this 
sculptured myth, though first seen in a copy: “ I like 
these strange, sweet, playful, rustic creatures, . . . 
linked so prettily, without monstrosity, to the lower 
tribes. . . . Their character has never, that I know of, 
been wrought out in literature; and something quite 
good, funny, and philosophical, as well as poetic, might 
very likely be educed from them. . . . The faun is a 
natural and delightful link betwixt human and brute life, 
with something of a divine character intermingled.” 

A few days later he saw, in the Capitol, the original: 
“We afterwards went into the sculpture gallery, where I 
looked at the Faun of Praxiteles, and was sensible of a 
peculiar charm in it; a sylvan beauty and homeliness, 
friendly and wild at once. The lengthened, but not pre¬ 
posterous ears, and the little tail, which we infer, have 
an exquisite effect, and make the spectator smile in his 
very heart. This race of fauns was the most delightful 
of all that antiquity imagined. It seems to me that a 
story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, might be con¬ 
trived on the idea of their species having become inter¬ 
mingled with the human race; a family with the faun 
blood in them, having prolonged itself from the classic 
era till our own days. The tail might have disappeared, 
by dint of constant intermarriages with ordinary mortals : 
but the pretty hairy ears should occasionally reappear 
in members of the family; and the moral instincts and 
intellectual characteristics of the faun might be most 


INTRODUCTION 


xv 


picturesquely brought out, without detriment to the 
human interest of the story.” 

On April 30 Hawthorne wrote of another visit to the 
sculpture gallery of the Capitol, “ I took particular 
note of the Faun of Praxiteles, because the idea keeps 
recurring to me of writing a little romance about it, and 
for that reason I shall endeavor to set down a somewhat 
minutely itemized detail of the statue and its surround¬ 
ings.” 

The description here entered in the Journal was after¬ 
ward transferred to the opening chapter of The Marble 
Faun. Hawthorne had found his theme, and although, 
in the working out, the “ fun and pathos ” were 
soon gloomed over by clouds of tragic mystery and 
the romance reverted to the old problem of evil, repeat¬ 
ing the story of the fall of man, yet he held fast to the 
message sent him down the centuries by Praxiteles. 
Although the protagonist is a living Donatello, not a 
sculptured image, the book is nevertheless well named 
The Marble Faun. The English publishers called it 
Transformation , and Hawthorne himself often referred to 
it by its secondary title, The Romance of Monte Beni , but 
neither of these stands, as does The Marble Faun , both 
for the germ of the theme itself and for the Roman set¬ 
ting. This dusky picture of spiritual birth has a broad 
frame elaborately wrought with artistic and archaeological 
detail. “No place,” wrote Hawthorne on his departure 
from Italy, “ ever took so strong a hold of my being as 
Rome, nor ever seemed so close to me and so strangely 
familiar. I seem to know it better than my birthplace, 
and to have known it longer.” 

Hawthorne’s first winter in Rome was physically 
unfortunate. A hard, persistent cold made him 
wretched for months. The second winter brought him 
the keenest anguish of his life in the long illness, almost 
unto death, of his daughter Una, who suffered the 
Roman fever in so severe a form that she was never thor¬ 
oughly well again. Mrs. Hawthorne seems to have laid 
her husband’s failure in health after their return to 
America at the door of Rome, which, she wrote, “ has 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION 


no sin to answer for so unpardonable as this of wrench¬ 
ing off your wings and hanging lead upon your arrowy 
feet. Rome — and all Rome caused to you.” 

Yet Hawthorne’s feeling for Rome reached into those 
depths of the heart where love and hate are not easily 
distinguished. The Marble Faun leans closely upon the 
Italian Note-Books , reproducing Hawthorne’s own obser¬ 
vations and impressions often in the very words of his 
Journal. His visit to the Catacombs preceded Miriam’s 
adventure there. He had watched many a girl copyist 
before he portrayed Hilda, had frequented studios and 
seen artists at their work, had given full meed of admira¬ 
tion to Story’s Cleopatra, had heard Powers condemn all 
other sculptors, and other sculptors condemn him, and 
had taken great interest in the plastic processes. 
Although Hawthorne knew well “that icy demon of 
weariness, who haunts great picture galleries,” he had 
mused long before the Beatrice Cenci, before Guido’s 
Archangel Michael, before the Dying Gladiator. He 
had taken part in two Roman Carnivals, visited the 
phantom-peopled Coliseum by moonlight, peered over the 
edge of the Tarpeian Rock, penetrated into the horrible 
cemetery of the Capuchins, and had actually beheld, in 
the church above, the still more horrible spectacle of the 
dead monk bleeding at the nostrils. Hawthorne had been 
in Rome four months when he noted in his Journal that 
an American artist had pointed out to him “ a tall, bat- 
tlemented tower,” which had at one angle “ a shrine of the 
Virgin, with a lamp.” His Journal goes on to relate the 
old Roman tradition of a vow which insured the perpet¬ 
ual burning of that flame, but it is for the sake of Hilda 
and her doves, not of ancient story, that tourists of to¬ 
day gaze upward to the shrine. 

The other famous tower of the book, the Owl Tower 
among the Apennines, was the residence of the Haw¬ 
thornes during their Italian summer. They had first 
settled in Florence, where they found such pleasant 
society in the Brownings and others that Hawthorne 
fairly came out of his shell. He felt, nevertheless, the 
writer’s need of solitude, of a quiet room with a locked 


INTRODUCTION 


XVII 


door. “ I need monotony, too,” he wrote, “ an eventless 
exterior life, before I can live in the world within.” An 
impoverished Italian count turned up, glad to rent his 
ancestral villa, the castle of Montaiito on the summit of 
Bellosguardo, with its forty rooms, its vineyards and fig 
plantations, its far-extending views and its memories 
of Savonarola, for twenty-eight dollars a month. The 
use to which Hawthorne put this romantic abode is 
made evident by the following passages from a letter 
home : “ I like my present residence immensely. The 
house stands on a hill, overlooking Florence, and is big 
enough to quarter a regiment. ... At one end of the 
house there is a moss-grown tower, haunted by owls and 
by the ghost of a monk, who was confined there in the 
thirteenth century, previous to being burned at the stake 
in the principal square of Florence. ... I mean to 
take it away bodily, and clap it into a romance, which 
I have in my head ready to be written out. . . . But I 
find this Italian atmosphere is not favorable to the close 
toil of composition, although it is a very good air to 
dream in. I must breathe the fogs of old England or 
the east winds of Massachusetts in order to put me into 
working trim.” 

After the crisis of Una’s illness had passed, the fol¬ 
lowing spring in Rome, Hawthorne turned to his romance 
again. “ I take some credit to myself,” he wrote to 
Mr. Fields, “for having sternly shut myself up for an 
hour or two almost every day, and come to close grips 
with a romance which I have been trying to tear out of 
my mind. As for my success, I can’t say much ; indeed, 
I don’t know what to say at all. I only know that I 
have produced what seems to be a larger amount of 
scribble than either of my former romances, and that 
portions of it interested me a good deal while I was 
writing them; but I have had so many interruptions, 
from things to see and things to suffer, that the story 
has developed itself in a very imperfect way, and will 
have to be revised hereafter.” 

It was revised, or rather re-written, during the summer 
and autumn, in England, at Redcar, on the Yorkshire 


xviii INTRODUCTION 

coast, to the music of “ the gray German ocean ” and 
the howling northern blast. The book was published 
at the end of the winter, i860, in both England and 
America. 

This wealth of Italian material often catches, in trans¬ 
ference, the gleam of Hawthorne’s own imagination, as 
in case of the fountain “ not altogether glad, after all its 
three centuries at play,” and “ the huge, storied shaft ” 
of Trajan’s column, that, twined from base to capital 
with the sculpture of his wars, “ must be laid before the 
judgment-seat as a piece of the evidence of what he did 
in the flesh.” In like manner the Italian Note-Books 
speak of Guido’s Aurora: “ My memory, I believe, will 
be somewhat enlivened by this picture hereafter; not 
that I remember it very distinctly even now, but bright 
things leave a sheen and glimmer in the mind, like 
Christian’s tremulous glimpse of the Celestial City.” 
Of the Apollo Belvedere he wrote: “ I saw the Apollo 
Belvedere as something ethereal and godlike; only for 
a flitting moment, however, and as if he had alighted 
from heaven, or shone suddenly out of the sunlight and 
then had withdrawn himself again.” Hawthorne’s sym¬ 
pathetic study of Michael Angelo’s great statue of 
Lorenzo de’ Medici ends with the words: “Its natural¬ 
ness is as if it came out of the marble of its own accord, 
with all its grandeur hanging heavily about it, and sat 
down there beneath its weight. I cannot describe it. 
It is like trying to stop the ghost of Hamlet’s father by 
crossing spears before it.” 

Where The Marble Faun does not directly take over 
a fancy from the Note-Books , it often slips the sugges¬ 
tion in at some unexpected point. Of the Campanile 
Hawthorne dared say to his Journal: “If it were only 
five inches long, it might be a case for some article of 
toilet; being two hundred feet high, its prettiness de¬ 
velops into grandeur as well as beauty.” Even so Hilda 
“ had not always been adequately impressed ” by St. 
Peter’s. “ In her earlier visits, when the compassed 
splendor of the actual interior glowed before her eyes, 
she had profanely called it a great prettiness; a gay 




INTRODUCTION 


xix 


piece of cabinet work on a Titanic scale; a jewel-casket, 
marvellously magnified.” 

One of the chief interests and beauties of The Marble 
Faun consists in its portrayal of Roman Catholicism, 
lighted up, as that portrayal constantly is, by Haw¬ 
thorne’s own responsive religious sense. St. Peter’s, 
where Hilda’s spiritual tragedy touches its climax, re¬ 
joiced Hawthorne in his first February visits chiefly by 
its “delightful, summer-like warmth.” He soon discov¬ 
ered it had “ a sunshine of its own, as well as its own 
temperature,” and thenceforth its magnitude and splen¬ 
dor steadily grew upon him, though all its variegated 
magnificence seemed to him, in Florence, of less value 
than the painted windows of the Duomo. For these not 
even Hawthorne could find an adequate praise: “ It is 
a pity anybody should die without seeing an antique 
painted window, with the bright Italian sunshine glowing 
through it. This is ‘ the dim, religious light ’ that Milton 
speaks of; but I doubt whether he saw these windows 
when he was in Italy, or any but those faded or dusty 
and dingy ones of the English cathedrals, else he would 
have illuminated that word ‘ dim ’ with some epithet that 
should not chase away the dimness, yet should make it 
shine like a million of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and 
topazes, — bright in themselves, but dim with tenderness 
and reverence because God himself was shining through 
them. I hate what I have said.” 

Hawthorne must have known something of Roman 
Catholicism through Brownson at Brook Farm. Cover- 
dale remarks — and at Eliot’s pulpit, too : “I have always 
envied the Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred 
Virgin Mother, who stands between them and the Deity, 
intercepting somewhat of his awful splendor, but per¬ 
mitting his love to stream upon the worshipper more 
intelligibly to human comprehension through the medium 
of a woman’s tenderness.” 

Yet it was in Rome that Hawthorne first breathed, 
and with no small degree of sympathy, the atmosphere 
of the Mother Church. He disliked the look of the 
Italian priests, distrusted the Papal system on its tern- 



XX 


INTRODUCTION 


poral side, and paid little heed to symbolic ritual and 
gorgeous ceremony; but the appeal of art to the religious 
emotion, the comfort of the confessional, the wayside 
cross, the individual devotions in ever open churches, all 
these touched him, enhancing that “ sad embrace with 
which Rome takes possession of the soul.” In subse¬ 
quent years, his daughter Una ended her days in “a 
sort of Protestant convent ” of the Church of England, 
and his daughter Rose, with her husband, George Parsons 
Lathrop, joined the Roman communion. 

All this Italian setting, so lavishly bestowed and so 
j delicately enriched with Hawthornesque imagination and 
reflection, seems to place The Marble Faun at a distance 
from the Puritan romances, yet at heart it is closely akin 
to The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. 
All three are visions of life rather than life itself, — that 
reflection whicl} was to Hawthorne more a reality than 
the material image. It is true that the characters were 
suggested, in several instances, by actual persons. 
Miriam’s dark beauty was drawn from a Jewess who 
once sat opposite Hawthorne at a Lord Mayor’s dinner. 
The “ mysterious, dusky, death-scented apparition ” of 
her tormentor appears to have been a compound of 
Guido’s Lucifer and various indeterminate Roman beg¬ 
gars and models. Hilda, to whom St. Hilda of Whitby 
gave her name, has many reminders of Una and not a 
few of Hawthorne himself. Kenyon, whom the author 
had first called Grayson, probably had no prototype. 
He is, indeed, hardly an improvement upon Holgrave. 
A thoroughly sane and sensible character appears to 
small advantage in Hawthorne’s romances. We need 
the touch of insanity, as here, where Miriam, under the 
arches of the Coliseum, was for one moment a mad 
woman; where we are told that her persecutor was mad; 
where, after his murder, Miriam and Donatello rose for 
one brief hour to “ the solemn madness of the occasion,” 
and trod the streets of Rome “as if they, too, were 
among the majestic and guilty shadows, that, from ages 
long gone by, have haunted the blood-stained city.” 

The Marble Faun is charged, and not unjustly, with 



INTRODUCTION 


xxi 


obscurity, which is a different thing from mystery. The 
superficial structure of the plot was left vague where it 
might better have been distinct. The reluctant, half- 
ironic postscript, added to a second edition because of 
the popular dissatisfaction, does not help the matter 
much. Many readers still sympathize with the protest 
of one of Hawthorne’s warmest friends: “ I want to know 
a hundred things you do not tell me, — who Miriam was, 
what was the crime in which she was concerned and of 
which all Europe knew, what was in the packet, what 
became of Hilda, whether Miriam married Donatello, 
whether Donatello got his head cut off, etc. Of course 
you ’ll say I ought to guess; well, if I do guess, it is but 
a guess and I want to know.” 

But these romances have their legitimate mystery, 
inherent in the theme. Hawthorne himself had not 
looked on Dimmesdale’s breast, nor pushed aside the 
clustering locks from Donatello’s ears. He would not 
violate the sanctuary of Clifford’s grief-ruined mind. “ It 
is holy ground,” said Phoebe, “where the shadow falls.” 
And why, then, should he specialize the desolating sin 
that enwrapt Miriam and her persecutor in a lonely dark¬ 
ness ? Even if we had chart and map for the histories 
of these two and for the anatomy of Donatello’s figure, 
the resultant mystery of the romance would still be 
shrouded in impenetrable dusk, — how from the poor 
Faun’s murderous deed there came to birth, though with 
long throes of anguish and remorse, an immortal, love- 
crowned soul. The essential problems of the book, — th e 
contagion of guilt, the loss of the Age of Innocence, the 
redemption of man, Hawthorne could only present; he 
could not solve. 


Katharine Lee Bates. 




PREFACE 


It is now seven or eight years (so many, at all events, 
that I cannot precisely remember the epoch) since the 
author of this romance last appeared before the public. 
It had grown to be a custom with him to introduce each 
of his humble publications with a familiar kind of pref¬ 
ace, addressed nominally to the Public at large, but 
really to a character with whom he felt entitled to use 
far greater freedom. He meant it for that one con¬ 
genial friend, — more comprehensive of his purposes, 
more appreciative of his success, more indulgent of his 
short-comings, and, in all respects, closer and kinder 
than a brother, — that all-sympathizing critic, in short, 
whom an author never actually meets, but to whom he 
implicitly makes his appeal whenever he is conscious of 
having done his best. 

The antique fashion of Prefaces recognized this genial 
personage as the “ Kind Reader/’ the “ Gentle Reader,” 
the “ Beloved,” the “ Indulgent,” or, at coldest, the 
“ Honored Reader,” to whom the prim old author was 
wont to make his preliminary explanations and apolo¬ 
gies, with the certainty that they would be favorably 
received. I never personally encountered, nor corre¬ 
sponded through the post with, this representative essence 
of all delightful and desirable qualities which a reader 
can possess. But, fortunately for myself, I never there¬ 
fore concluded him to be merely a mythic character. I 
had always a sturdy faith in his actual existence, and 
wrote for him year after year, during which the great 
eye of the Public (as well it might) almost utterly over¬ 
looked my small productions. 

Unquestionably, this gentle, kind, benevolent, indul¬ 
gent, and most beloved and honored Reader did once 
exist for me, and (in spite of the infinite chances against 

xxiii 


XXIV 


PREFACE 


a letter’s reaching its destination without a definite 
address) duly received the scrolls which I flung upon 
whatever wind was blowing, in the faith that they would 
find him out. But is he extant now? In these many 
years, since he last heard from me, may he not have 
deemed his earthly task accomplished, and have with¬ 
drawn to the paradise of gentle readers, wherever it may 
be, to the enjoyments of which his kindly charity on my 
behalf must surely have entitled him? I have a sad 
foreboding that this may be the truth. The “Gentle 
Reader,” in the case of any individual author, is apt to 
be extremely short-lived; he seldom outlasts a literary 
fashion, and, except in very rare instances, closes his 
weary eyes before the writer has half done with him. If 
I find him at all, it will probably be under some mossy 
gravestone, inscribed with a half-obliterated name which 
I shall never recognize. 

Therefore, I have little heart or confidence (especially, 
writing as I do in a foreign land, and after a long, long 
absence from my own) to presume upon the existence of 
that friend of friends, that unseen brother of the soul, 
whose apprehensive sympathy has so often encouraged 
me to be egotistical in my prefaces, careless though un¬ 
kindly eyes should skim over what was never meant for 
them. I stand upon ceremony now, and, after stating 
a few particulars about the work which is here offered 
to the Public, must make my most reverential bow, and 
retire behind the curtain. 

This Romance was sketched out during a residence of 
considerable length in Italy, and has been re-written and 
prepared for the press in England. The author pro¬ 
posed to himself merely to write a fanciful story, evolv¬ 
ing a thoughtful moral, and did not purpose attempting 
a portraiture of Italian manners and character. He has 
lived too long abroad not to be aware that a foreigner 
seldom acquires that knowledge of a country at once 
flexible and profound, which may justify him in endeavor¬ 
ing to idealize its traits. 

Italy, as the site of his Romance, was chiefly valuable 
to him as affording a sort of poetic or fairy precinct, 


PREFACE 


XXV 


where actualities would not be so terribly insisted upon 
as they are, and must needs be, in America. No author, 
without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing 
a romance about a country where there is no shadow, 
no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy 
wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity, in 
broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with 
my dear native land. It will be very long, I trust, 
before romance-writers may find congenial and easily 
handled themes, either in the annals of our stalwart 
republic, or in any characteristic and probable events of 
our individual lives. Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens, 
and wall-flowers, need ruin to make them grow. 

In re-writing these volumes, the author was somewhat 
surprised to see the extent to which he had introduced 
descriptions of various Italian objects, antique, pictorial, 
and statuesque. Yet these things fill the mind every¬ 
where in Italy, and especially in Rome, and cannot 
easily be kept from flowing out upon the page when one 
writes freely, and with self-enjoyment. And, again, 
while reproducing the book, on the broad and dreary 
sands of Redcar, with the gray German Ocean tumbling 
in upon me, and the northern blast always howling in 
my ears, the complete change of scene made these Ital¬ 
ian reminiscences shine out so vividly that I could not 
find it in my heart to cancel them. 

An act of justice remains to be performed toward two 
men of genius with whose productions the author has 
allowed himself to use a quite unwarrantable freedom. 
Having imagined a sculptor in this Romance, it was 
necessary to provide him with such works in marble as 
should be in keeping with the artistic ability which he 
was supposed to possess. With this view, the author 
laid felonious hands upon a certain bust of Milton, and 
a statue of a pearl-diver, which he found in the studio of 
Mr. Paul Akers, and secretly conveyed them to the 
premises of his imaginary friend, in the Via Frezza. 
Not content even with these spoils, he committed a 
further robbery upon a magnificent statue of Cleopatra, 
the production of Mr William W. Story, an artist 


XXVI 


PREFACE 


whom his country and the world will not long fail to 
appreciate. He had thoughts of appropriating, likewise, 
a certain door of bronze by Mr. Randolph Rogers, 
representing the history of Columbus in a series of ad¬ 
mirable bas-reliefs, but was deterred by an unwillingness 
to meddle with public property. Were he capable of 
stealing from a lady, he would certainly have made free 
with Miss Hosmer’s admirable statue of Zenobia. 

He now wishes to restore the above-mentioned beau¬ 
tiful pieces of sculpture to their proper owners, with 
many thanks, and the avowal of his sincere admiration. 
What he has said of them in the Romance does not par¬ 
take of the fiction in which they are imbedded, but 
expresses his genuine opinion, which, he has little doubt, 
will be found in accordance with that of the Public. It 
is, perhaps, unnecessary to say, that, while stealing their 
designs, the author has not taken a similar liberty with 
the personal characters of either of these gifted sculp¬ 
tors, his own man of marble being entirely imaginary. 


Leamington, December 15, 1859. 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


CHAPTER I 

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO 

F OUR individuals, in whose fortunes we should be 
glad to interest the reader, happened to be standing 
in one of the saloons of the sculpture-gallery in the Capi¬ 
tol at Rome. It was that room (the first, after ascending 
the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble 
and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just 
sinking into his death-swoon. Around the walls stand 
the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian Apollo, the Juno; 
all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still 
shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their 
ideal life, although the marble that embodies them is 
yellow with time, and perhaps corroded by the damp 
earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, 
likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it 
was two thousand years ago) of the Human Soul, with 
its choice of Innocence or Evil close at hand, in the 
pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, 
but assaulted by a snake. 

From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see 
a flight of broad stone steps, descending alongside the 
antique and massive foundation of the Capitol, towards 
the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, right 
below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the 
desolate Forum, (where Roman washerwomen hang out 
their linen to the sun,) passing over a shapeless con¬ 
fusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up with ancient 
brick and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches, 
built on the old pavements of heathen temples, and sup- 


2 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


ported by the very pillars that once upheld them. At a 
distance beyond — yet but a little way, considering how 
much history is heaped into the intervening space — 
rises the great sweep of the Coliseum, with the blue sky 
brightening through its upper tier of arches. Far off, 
the view is shut in by the Alban mountains, looking just 
the same amid all this decay and change, as when Romu¬ 
lus gazed thitherward over his half-finished wall. 

We glance hastily at these things — at this bright 
sky, and those blue, distant mountains, and at the ruins, 
Etruscan, Roman, Christian, venerable with a threefold 
antiquity, and at the company of world-famous statues 
in the saloon — in the hope of putting the reader into 
that state of feeling which is experienced oftenest at 
Rome. It is a vague sense of ponderous remembrances; 
a perception of such weight and density in a bygone 
life, of which this spot was the centre, that the present 
moment is pressed down or crowded out, and our indi¬ 
vidual affairs and interests are but half as real here as 
elsewhere. Viewed through this medium, our narrative 
— into which are woven some airy and unsubstantial 
threads, intermixed with others, twisted out of the com¬ 
monest stuff of human existence — may seem not widely 
different from the texture of all our lives. 

Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past, 
all matters that we handle or dream of nowadays look 
evanescent and visionary alike. 

It might be that the four persons whom we are seek¬ 
ing to introduce, were conscious of this dreamy charac¬ 
ter of the present, as compared with the square blocks 
of granite wherewith the Romans built their lives. Per¬ 
haps it even contributed to the fanciful merriment which 
was just now their mood. When we find ourselves fad¬ 
ing into shadows and unrealities, it seems hardly worth 
while to be sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we may, 
and ask little reason wherefore. 

Of these four friends of ours, three were artists, or 
connected with art; and, at this moment, they had been 
simultaneously struck by a resemblance between one of 
the antique statues, a well-known masterpiece of Grecian 


MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON 3 

sculpture, and a young Italian, the fourth member of 
their party. 

“You must needs confess, Kenyon,” said a dark-eyed 
young woman, whom her friends called Miriam, “that 
you never chiselled out of marble, nor wrought in clay, 
a more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker as 
you think yourself. The portraiture is perfect in char¬ 
acter, sentiment, and feature. If it were a picture, the 
resemblance might be half illusive and imaginary; but 
here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a substantial fact, and 
may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. Our 
friend Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it 
not true, Hilda ? ” 

“ Not quite — almost — yes, I really think so,” replied 
Hilda, a slender, brown-haired, New England girl, whose 
perceptions of form and expression were wonderfully 
clear and delicate. “If there is any difference between 
the two faces, the reason may be, I suppose, that the 
Faun dwelt in woods and fields, and consorted with his 
like; whereas, Donatello has known cities a little, and 
such people as ourselves. But the resemblance is very 
close, and very strange.” 

“ Not so strange,” whispered Miriam, mischievously ; 
“for no Faun in Arcadia was ever a greater simpleton 
than Donatello. He has hardly a man’s share of wit, 
small as that may be. It is a pity there are no longer 
any of this congenial race of rustic creatures for our 
friend to consort with ! ” 

“Hush, naughty one!” returned Hilda. “You are 
very ungrateful, for you well know he has wit enough 
to worship you, at all events.” 

“ Then the greater fool he ! ” said Miriam, so bitterly 
that Hilda’s quiet eyes were somewhat startled. 

“ Donatello, my dear friend,” said Kenyon, in Italian, 
“ pray gratify us all by taking the exact attitude of this 
statue.” 

The young man laughed, and threw himself into the 
position in which the statue has been standing for two 
or three thousand years. In truth, allowing for the 
difference of costume, and if a lion’s skin could have 


4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


been substituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe 
for his stick, Donatello might have figured perfectly as 
the marble Faun, miraculously softened into flesh and 
blood. 

“ Yes; the resemblance is wonderful,” observed Ken¬ 
yon, after examining the marble and the man with the 
accuracy of a sculptor’s eye. “ There is one point, how¬ 
ever, or, rather, two points, in respect to which our friend 
Donatello’s abundant curls will not permit us to say 
whether the likeness is carried into minute detail.” 

And the sculptor directed the attention of the party 
to the ears of the beautiful statue which they were con¬ 
templating. 

But we must do more than merely refer to this exqui¬ 
site work of art; it must be described, however inade¬ 
quate may be the effort to express its magic peculiarity 
in words. 

The Faun is the marble image of a young man, lean¬ 
ing his right arm on the trunk or stump of a tree ; one 
hand hangs carelessly by his side; in the other he holds 
the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument 
of music. His only garment — a lion’s skin, with the 
claws upon his shoulder — falls half way down his back, 
leaving the limbs and entire front of the figure nude. 
The form, thus displayed, is marvellously graceful, but 
has a fuller and more rounded outline, more flesh, and 
less of heroic muscle than the old sculptors were wont 
to assign to their types of masculine beauty. The char¬ 
acter of the face corresponds with the figure ; it is most 
agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and some¬ 
what voluptuously developed, especially about the throat 
and chin; the nose is almost straight, but very slightly 
curves inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm 
of geniality and humor. The mouth, with its full yet 
delicate lips, seems so nearly to smile outright, that it 
calls forth a responsive smile. The whole statue — un¬ 
like anything else that ever was wrought in that severe 
material of marble— conveys the idea of an amiable and 
sensual creature, easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not 
incapable of being touched by pathos. It is impossible 



THE FAUN OF PRAXITELES. 

From the original statue in the Capitol at Rome. 











MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON 


5 


to gaze long at this stone image without conceiving a 
kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were 
warm to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It comes 
very close to some of our pleasantest sympathies. 

Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any 
high and heroic ingredient in the character of the Faun, 
that makes it so delightful an object to the human eye 
and to the frailty of the human heart. The being here 
represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and 
would be incapable of comprehending such; but he 
would be true and honest by dint of his simplicity. We 
should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for an ab¬ 
stract cause; there is not an atom of martyr’s stuff in 
all that softened marble ; but he has a capacity for strong\ 
and warm attachment, and might act devotedly through' 
its impulse, and even die for it at need. It is possible, 
too, that the Faun might be educated through the medium 
of his emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his 
nature might eventually be thrown into the background, 
though never utterly expelled. 

The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of 
the Faun’s composition; for the characteristics of the 
brute creation meet and combine with those of humanity 
in this strange yet true and natural conception of antique 
poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused through¬ 
out his work that mute mystery which so hopelessly per¬ 
plexes us whenever we attempt to gain an intellectual or 
sympathetic knowledge of the lower orders of creation. 
The riddle is indicated, however, only by two definite 
signs; these are the two ears of the Faun, which are 
leaf-shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some 
species of animals. Though not so seen in the marble, 
they are probably to be considered as clothed in fine, 
downy fur. In the coarser representations of this class 
of mythological creatures, there is another token of brute 
kindred, — a certain caudal appendage; which, if the 
Faun of Praxiteles must be supposed to possess it at all, 
is hidden by the lion’s skin that forms his garment. The 
pointed and furry ears, therefore, are the sole indications 
of his wild, forest nature. 


6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most 
delicate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic 
skill — in a word, a sculptor and a poet too — could have 
first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then have suc¬ 
ceeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in 
marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster; 
but a being in whom both races meet on friendly ground ! 
The idea grows coarse as we handle it, and hardens in 
our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long over the 
statue, he will be conscious of its spell; all the pleasant¬ 
ness of sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteris¬ 
tics of creatures that dwell in woods and fields, will seem 
to be mingled and kneaded into one substance, along 
with the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, 
grass, flowers, woodland streamlets, cattle, deer, and un¬ 
sophisticated man ! The essence of all these was com¬ 
pressed long ago, and still exists within that discolored 
marble surface of the Faun of Praxiteles. 

And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but 
rather a poet’s reminiscence of a period when man’s 
affinity with nature was more strict, and his fellowship 
with every living thing more intimate and dear. 


CHAPTER II 


THE FAUN 

“ T^ONATELLO,” playfully cried Miriam, “do not 
LJ leave us in this perplexity! Shake aside those 
brown curls, my friend, and let us see whether this mar¬ 
vellous resemblance extends to the very tips of the ears. 
If so, we shall like you all the better! ” 

“ No, no, dearest signorina,” answered Donatello, 
laughing, but with a certain earnestness. “ I entreat 
you to take the tips of my ears for granted.” As he 
spoke, the young Italian made a skip and jump, light 
enough for a veritable faun; so as to place himself 
quite beyond the reach of the fair hand that was out¬ 
stretched, as if to settle the matter by actual exami¬ 
nation. “ I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines,” 
he continued, taking his stand on the other side of 
the Dying Gladiator, “if you touch my ears ever so 
softly. None of my race could endure it. It has 
always been a tender point with my forefathers and 
me.” 

He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of 
accent, and an unshaped sort of utterance, betokening 
that he must heretofore have been chiefly conversant 
with rural people. 

“Well, well,” said Miriam, “your tender point — your 
two tender points, if you have them — shall be safe, so 
far as I am concerned. But how strange this likeness 
is, after all! and how delightful, if it really includes the 
pointed ears! Oh, it is impossible, of course,” she con¬ 
tinued, in English, “ with a real and commonplace young 
man like Donatello; but you see how this peculiarity 
defines the position of the Faun; and, while putting 
him where he cannot exactly assert his brotherhood, 

7 


8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


still disposes us kindly towards the kindred creature. 
He is not supernatural, but just on the verge of nature, 
and yet within it. What is the nameless charm of this 
idea, Hilda? You can feel it more delicately than I.” 

“ It perplexes me,” said Hilda, thoughtfully, and 
shrinking a little; “ neither do I quite like to think 
about it.” 

“ But, surely,” said Kenyon, “ you agree with Miriam 
and me, that there is something very touching and im¬ 
pressive in this statue of the Faun. In some long-past 
age, he must really have existed. Nature needed, and 
still needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man 
and animal, sympathizing with each, comprehending the 
speech of either race, and interpreting the whole exist¬ 
ence of one to the other. What a pity that he has for¬ 
ever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life, — 
unless,” added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, “Dona¬ 
tello be actually he! ” 

“You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold 
of me,” responded Miriam, between jest and earnest. 
“ Imagine, now, a real being, similar to this mythic 
Faun; how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would 
be his life, enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of 
nature ; revelling in the merriment of woods and streams; 
living as our four-footed kindred do, — as mankind did 
in its innocent childhood ; before sin, sorrow, or morality 
itself had ever been thought of ! Ah ! Kenyon, if Hilda 
and you and I — if I, at least, — had pointed ears ! For 
I suppose the Faun had no conscience, no remorse, no 
burthen on the heart, no troublesome recollections of 
any sort; no dark future either.” 

“What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!” said 
the sculptor; and, looking into her face, he was startled 
to behold it pale and tear-stained. “ How suddenly this 
mood has come over you ! ” 

“ Let it go as it came,” said Miriam, “ like a thunder¬ 
shower in this Roman sky. All is sunshine again, you 
see! ” 

Donatello’s refractoriness as regarded his ears had 
evidently cost him something, and he now came close 


THE FAUN 


9 


to Miriam’s side, gazing at her with an appealing air, 
as if to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture 
of entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might 
well enough excite a laugh, so like it was to what you 
may see in the aspect of a hound when he thinks him¬ 
self in fault or disgrace. It was difficult to make out 
the character of this young man. So full of animal life 
as he was, so joyous in his deportment, so handsome, so 
physically well developed, he made no impression of in¬ 
completeness, of maimed or stinted nature. And yet, 
in social intercourse, these familiar friends of his habitu¬ 
ally and instinctively allowed for him, as for a child or 
some other lawless thing, exacting no strict obedience 
to conventional rules, and hardly noticing his eccentrici¬ 
ties enough to pardon them. There was an indefinable 
characteristic about Donatello that set him outside of 
rules. 

He caught Miriam’s hand, kissed it, and gazed into 
her eyes without saying a word. She smiled, and be¬ 
stowed on him a little careless caress, singularly like 
what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself 
in the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a 
caress either, but only the merest touch, somewhere be¬ 
tween a pat and a tap of the finger; it might be a mark 
of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of punish¬ 
ment. At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello 
exquisite pleasure ; insomuch that he danced quite round 
the wooden railing that fences in the Dying Gladiator. 

“ It is the very step of the Dancing Faun,” said Miriam 
apart to Hilda. “What a child, or what a simpleton, 
he is! I continually find myself treating Donatello as 
if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet he 
can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender 
age; for he is at least — how old should you think him, 
Hilda?” 

“Twenty years, perhaps,” replied Hilda, glancing at 
Donatello; “ but, indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, 
on second thoughts, or possibly older. He has nothing 
to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth in his 
face.” 


IO 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ All underwitted people have that look,” said Miriam, 
scornfully. 

“ Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, 
as Hilda suggests,” observed Kenyon, laughing; “for, 
judging by the date of this statue, which, I am more 
and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for 
him, he must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and 
he still looks as young as ever.” 

“ What age have you, Donatello ? ” asked Miriam. 

“ Signorina, I do not know,” he answered; “no great 
age, however; for I have only lived since I met you.” 

“ Now, what old man of society could have turned a 
silly compliment more smartly than that! ” exclaimed 
Miriam. “ Nature and art are just at one sometimes. 
But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend Dona¬ 
tello! Not to know his own age! It is equivalent to 
being immortal on earth. If I could only forget mine!” 

“ It is too soon to wish that,” observed the sculptor; 
“you are scarcely older than Donatello looks.” 

“ I shall be content, then,” rejoined Miriam, “ if I 
could only forget one day of all my life.” Then she 
seemed to repent of this allusion, and hastily added, “ A 
woman’s days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave 
even one of them out of the account.” 

The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a 
mood in which all imaginative people, whether artists 
or poets, love to indulge. In this frame of mind, they 
sometimes find their profoundest truths side by side with 
the idlest jest, and utter one or the other, apparently 
without distinguishing which is the most valuable, or 
assigning any considerable value to either. The resem¬ 
blance between the marble Faun and their living com¬ 
panion had made a deep, half-serious, half-mirthful 
impression on these three friends, and had taken them 
into a certain airy region, lifting up, as it is so pleasant 
to feel them lifted, their heavy earthly feet from the 
actual soil of life. The world had been set afloat, as it 
were, for a moment, and relieved them for just so long 
of all customary responsibility for what they thought 
and said. 


THE FAUN 


11 

It might be under this influence — or, perhaps, be¬ 
cause sculptors always abuse one another’s works — 
that Kenyon threw in a criticism upon the Dying Gladi¬ 
ator. 

“I used to admire this statue exceedingly,” he re¬ 
marked, “ but, latterly, I find myself getting weary and 
annoyed that the man should be such a length of time 
leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so 
terribly hurt, why does he not sink down and die with¬ 
out further ado? Flitting moments, imminent emer¬ 
gencies, imperceptible intervals between two breaths, 
ought not to be encrusted with the eternal repose of 
marble; in any sculptural subject, there should be a 
moral standstill, since there must of necessity be a 
physical one. Otherwise, it is like flinging a block of 
marble up into the air, and by some trick or enchant¬ 
ment, causing it to stick there. You feel that it ought 
to come down, and are dissatisfied that it does not obey 
the natural law.” 

“ I see,” said Miriam, mischievously, “ you think that 
sculpture should be a sort of fossilizing process. But, 
in truth, your frozen art has nothing like the scope and 
freedom of Hilda’s and mine. In painting, there is no 
similar objection to the representation of brief snatches 
of time; perhaps, because a story can be so much more 
fully told in picture, and buttressed about with circum¬ 
stances that give it an epoch. For instance, a painter 
never would have sent down yonder Faun out of his far 
antiquity, lonely and desolate, with no companion to 
keep his simple heart warm.” 

“Ah, the Faun! ” cried Hilda, with a little gesture of 
impatience; “ I have been looking at him too long; and 
now, instead of a beautiful statue, immortally young, I 
see only a corroded and discolored stone. This change 
is very apt to occur in statues.” 

“ And a similar one in pictures, surely,” retorted the 
sculptor. “ It is the spectator’s mood that transfigures 
the Transfiguration itself. I defy any painter to move 
and elevate me without my own consent and assistance.” 

“ Then you are deficient of a sense,” said Miriam. 


12 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


The party now strayed onward from hall to hall of 
that rich gallery, pausing here and there, to look at the 
multitude of noble and lovely shapes, which have been 
dug up out of the deep grave in which old Rome lies 
buried. And, still, the realization of the antique Faun, 
in the person of Donatello, gave a more vivid character 
to all these marble ghosts. Why should not each statue 
grow warm with life ! Antinous might lift his brow, 
and tell us why he is forever sad. The Lycian Apollo 
might strike his lyre; and, at the first vibration, that 
other Faun in red marble, who keeps up a motionless 
dance, should frisk gayly forth, leading yonder Satyrs, 
with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter their little hoofs 
upon the floor, and all join hands with Donatello! 
Bacchus, too, a rosy flush diffusing itself over his time- 
stained surface, could come down from his pedestal, and 
offer a cluster of purple grapes to Donatello’s lips; be¬ 
cause the god recognizes him as the woodland elf who 
so often shared his revels. And here, in this sarcopha¬ 
gus, the exquisitely carved figures might assume life, 
and chase one another round its verge with that wild 
merriment which is so strangely represented on those 
old burial coffers; though still with some subtle allusion 
to death, carefully veiled, but forever peeping forth 
amid emblems of mirth and riot. 

As the four friends descended the stairs, however, 
their play of fancy subsided into a much more sombre 
mood; a result apt to follow upon such exhilaration as 
that which had so recently taken possession of them. 

“ Do you know,” said Miriam, confidentially to Hilda, 
“ I doubt the reality of this likeness of Donatello to the 
Faun, which we have been talking so much about ? To 
say the truth, it never struck me so forcibly as it did 
Kenyon and yourself, though I gave in to whatever you 
were pleased to fancy, for the sake of a moment’s mirth 
and wonder.” 

“ I was certainly in earnest, and you seemed equally 
so,” replied Hilda, glancing back at Donatello, as if to 
reassure herself of the resemblance. “ But faces change 
so much, from hour to hour, that the same set of fea- 


THE FAUN 


13 


tures has often no keeping with itself; to an eye, at least, 
which looks at expression more than outline. How sad 
and sombre he has grown, all of a sudden! ” 

“ Angry, too, methinks ! nay, it is anger much more 
than sadness,” said Miriam. “ I have seen Donatello in 
this mood once or twice before. If you consider him 
well, you will observe an odd mixture of the bull-dog, 
or some other equally fierce brute, in our friend’s com¬ 
position ; a trait of savageness hardly to be expected in 
such a gentle creature as he usually is. Donatello is a 
very strange young man. I wish he would not haunt 
my footsteps so continually.” 

“ You have bewitched the poor lad,” said the sculptor, 
laughing. “You have a faculty of bewitching people, 
and it is providing you with a singular train of followers. 
I see another of them behind yonder pillar; and it is 
his presence that has aroused Donatello’s wrath.” 

They had now emerged from the gateway of the 
palace ; and partly concealed by one of the pillars of 
the portico, stood a figure such as may often be en¬ 
countered in the streets and piazzas of Rome, and no¬ 
where else. He looked as if he might just have stepped 
out of a picture, and, in truth, was likely enough to find 
his way into a dozen pictures; being no other than one 
of those living models, dark, bushy-bearded, wild of 
aspect and attire, whom artists convert into saints or 
assassins, according as their pictorial purposes demand. 

“Miriam,” whispered Hilda, a little startled, “it is 
your model! ” 


CHAPTER III 


SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES 

M IRIAM’S model has so important a connection 
with our story, that it is essential to describe the 
singular mode of his first appearance, and how he sub¬ 
sequently became a self-appointed follower of the young 
female artist. In the first place, however, we must 
devote a page or two to certain peculiarities in the 
position of Miriam herself. 

There was an ambiguity about this young lady, which, 
though it did not necessarily imply anything wrong, 
would have operated unfavorably as regarded her recep¬ 
tion in society, anywhere but in Rome. The truth was, 
that nobody knew anything about Miriam, either for 
good or evil. She had made her appearance without 
introduction, had taken a studio, put her card upon the 
door, and showed very considerable talent as a painter 
in oils. Her fellow-professors of the brush, it is true, 
showered abundant criticisms upon her pictures, allow¬ 
ing them to be well enough for the idle half-efforts of 
an amateur, but lacking both the trained skill and the 
practice that distinguish the works of a true artist. 

Nevertheless, be their faults what they might, Miriam’s 
pictures met with good acceptance among the patrons 
of modern art. Whatever technical merit they lacked, 
its absence was more than supplied by a warmth and 
passionateness, which she had the faculty of putting 
into her productions, and which all the world could feel. 
Her nature had a great deal of color, and, in accordance 
with it, so likewise had her pictures. 

Miriam had great apparent freedom of intercourse ; 
her manners were so far from evincing shyness, that 
it seemed easy to become acquainted with her, and not 

14 


SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES 15 

difficult to develop a casual acquaintance into intimacy. 
Such, at least, was the impression which she made, upon 
brief contact, but not such the ultimate conclusion of 
those who really sought to know her. So airy, free, 
and affable was Miriam’s deportment towards all who 
came within her sphere, that possibly they might never 
be conscious of the fact; but so it was, that they did 
not get on, and were seldom any farther advanced into 
her good graces to-day than yesterday. By some 
subtle quality, she kept people at a distance, without so 
much as letting them know that they were excluded 
from her inner circle. She resembled one of those 
images of light, which conjurers evoke and cause to 
shine before us, in apparent tangibility, only an arm’s 
length beyond our grasp: we make a step in advance, 
expecting to seize the illusion, but find it still precisely 
so far out of our reach. Finally, society began to 
recognize the impossibility of getting nearer to Miriam, 
and gruffly acquiesced. 

There were two persons, however, whom she appeared 
to acknowledge as friends in the closer and truer sense 
of the word ; and both of these more favored individuals 
did credit to Miriam’s selection. One was a young 
’American sculptor, of high promise and rapidly increas¬ 
ing celebrity; the other, a girl of the same country, a 
painter like Miriam herself, but in a widely different 
sphere of art. Her heart flowed out towards these two ; 
she requited herself by their society and friendship 
(and especially by Hilda’s) for all the loneliness with 
which, as regarded the rest of the world, she chose to 
be surrounded. Her two friends were conscious of the 
strong, yearning grasp which Miriam laid upon them, 
and gave her their affection in full measure ; Hilda, 
indeed, responding with the fervency of a girl’s first 
friendship, and Kenyon with a manly regard, in which 
there was nothing akin to what is distinctively called 
love. 

A sort of intimacy subsequently grew up between 
these three friends and a fourth individual; it was a 
young Italian, who, casually visiting Rome, had been 


i6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


attracted by the beauty which Miriam possessed in a 
remarkable degree. He had sought her, followed her, 
and insisted, with simple perseverance, upon being 
admitted at least to her acquaintance; a boon which 
had been granted, when a more artful character, seek¬ 
ing it by a more subtle mode of pursuit, would probably 
have failed to obtain it. This young man, though any¬ 
thing but intellectually brilliant, had many agreeable 
characteristics which won him the kindly and half-con¬ 
temptuous regard of Miriam and her two friends. It 
was he whom they called Donatello, and whose wonder¬ 
ful resemblance to the Faun of Praxiteles forms the 
key-note of our narrative. 

Such was the position in which we find Miriam some 
few months after her establishment at Rome. It must 
be added, however, that the world did not permit her to 
hide her antecedents without making her the subject of a 
good deal of conjecture; as was natural enough, consid¬ 
ering the abundance of her personal charms, and the 
degree of notice that she attracted as an artist. There 
were many stories about Miriam’s origin and previous 
life, some of which had a very probable air, while others 
were evidently wild and romantic fables. We cite a 
few, leaving the reader to designate them either under 
the probable or the romantic head. 

It was said, for example, that Miriam was the daugh¬ 
ter and heiress of a great Jewish banker, (an idea per¬ 
haps suggested by a certain rich Oriental character in 
her face,) and had fled from her paternal home to escape 
a union with a cousin, the heir of another of that golden 
brotherhood; the object being, to retain their vast accu¬ 
mulation of wealth within the family. Another story 
hinted, that she was a German princess, whom, for rea¬ 
sons of state, it was proposed to give in marriage either 
to a decrepit sovereign, or a prince still in his cradle. 
According to a third statement, she was the offspring 
of a Southern American planter, who had given her an 
elaborate education and endowed her with his wealth; 
but the one burning drop of African blood in her veins 
so affected her with a sense of ignominy, that she relin- 


SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES 17 

quished all, and fled her country. By still another 
account she was the lady of an English nobleman; and, 
out of mere love and honor of art, had thrown aside the 
splendor of her rank, and come to seek a subsistence 
by her pencil in a Roman studio. 

In all the above cases, the fable seemed to be insti¬ 
gated by the large and bounteous impression which 
Miriam invariably made, as if necessity and she could 
have nothing to do with one another. Whatever depri¬ 
vations she underwent must needs be voluntary. But 
there were other surmises, taking such a commonplace 
view as that Miriam was the daughter of a merchant 
or financier, who had been ruined in a great commercial 
crisis ; and, possessing a taste for art, she had attempted 
to support herself by the pencil, in preference to the 
alternative of going out as governess. 

Be these things how they might, Miriam, fair as she 
looked, was plucked up out of a mystery, and had its 
roots still clinging to her. She was a beautiful and 
attractive woman, but based, as it were, upon a cloud, 
and all surrounded with misty substance; so that the 
result was to render her sprite-like in her most ordinary 
manifestations. This was the case even in respect to 
Kenyon and Hilda, her especial friends. But such was 
the effect of Miriam’s natural language, her generosity, 
kindliness, and native truth of character, that these two 
received her as a dear friend into their hearts, taking 
her good qualities as evident and genuine, and never 
imagining that what was hidden must be therefore evil. 

We now proceed with our narrative. 

The same party of friends, whom we have seen at the 
sculpture gallery of the Capitol, chanced to have gone 
together, some months before, to the catacomb of St. 
Calixtus. They went joyously down into that vast tomb, 
and wandered by torchlight through a sort of dream, in 
which reminiscences of church-aisles and grimy cellars— 
and chiefly the latter — seemed to be broken into frag¬ 
ments, and hopelessly intermingled. The intricate pas¬ 
sages along which they followed their guide had been 
hewn, in some forgotten age, out of a dark-red, crumbly 


i8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


stone. On either side were horizontal niches, where, if 
they held their torches closely, the shape of a human 
body was discernible in white ashes, into which the en¬ 
tire mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. 
Among all this extinct dust, there might perchance be a 
thigh-bone, which crumbled at a touch; or possibly a 
skull, grinning at its own wretched plight, as is the 
ugly and empty habit of the thing. 

Sometimes their gloomy pathway tended upward, so 
that, through a crevice, a little daylight glimmered down 
upon them, or even a streak of sunshine peeped into a 
burial niche; then again, they went downward by grad¬ 
ual descent, or by abrupt, rudely hewn steps into deeper 
and deeper recesses of the earth. Here and there the 
narrow and tortuous passages widened somewhat, devel¬ 
oping themselves into small chapels; which once, no 
doubt, had been adorned with marble-work and lighted 
with ever-burning lamps and tapers. All such illumi¬ 
nation and ornament, however, had long since been 
extinguished and stript away; except, indeed, that the 
low roofs of a few of these ancient sites of worship were 
covered with dingy stucco, and frescoed with scriptural 
scenes and subjects, in the dreariest stage of ruin. 

In one such chapel, the guide showed them a low 
arch, beneath which the body of St. Cecilia had been 
buried after her martyrdom, and where it lay till a 
sculptor saw it, and rendered it forever beautiful in 
marble. 

In a similar spot they found two sarcophagi, one con¬ 
taining a skeleton, and the other a shrivelled body, 
which still wore the garments of its former lifetime. 

“ How dismal all this is! ” said Hilda, shuddering. 
“ I do not know why we came here, nor why we should 
stay a moment longer.” 

“ I hate it all! ” cried Donatello, with peculiar energy. 
“ Dear friends, let us hasten back into the blessed 
daylight! ” 

From the first Donatello had shown little fancy for 
the expedition; for, like most Italians, and in especial 
accordance with the law of his own simple and physi- 


SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES 19 

cally happy nature, this young man had an infinite 
repugnance to graves and skulls, and to all that ghastli¬ 
ness which the Gothic mind loves to associate with the 
idea of death. He shuddered, and looked fearfully 
round, drawing nearer to Miriam, whose attractive influ¬ 
ence alone had enticed him into that gloomy region. 

“What a child you are, poor Donatello!” she ob¬ 
served, with the freedom which she always used towards 
him. “ You are afraid of ghosts ! ” 

“Yes, signorina; terribly afraid!” said the truthful 
Donatello. 

“I also believe in ghosts,” answered Miriam, “and 
could tremble at them in a suitable place. But these 
sepulchres are so old, and these skulls and white ashes 
so very dry, that methinks they have ceased to be 
haunted. The most awful idea connected with the 
catacombs is their interminable extent, and the possi¬ 
bility of going astray into this labyrinth of darkness, 
which broods around the little glimmer of our tapers.” 

“Has any one ever been lost here ? ” asked Kenyon 
of the guide. 

“ Surely, signor; one, no longer ago than my father’s 
time,” said the guide; and he added, with the air of a 
man who believed what he was telling, “but the first 
that went astray here was a pagan of old Rome, who 
hid himself in order to spy out and betray the blessed 
saints, who then dwelt and worshipped in these dismal 
places. You have heard the story, signor? A miracle 
was wrought upon the accursed one; and, ever since 
(for fifteen centuries at least), he has been groping in 
the darkness, seeking his way out of the catacomb.” 

“ Has he ever been seen ? ” asked Hilda, who had 
great and tremulous faith in marvels of this kind. 

“ These eyes of mine never beheld him, signorina; the 
saints forbid! ” answered the guide. “ But it is well 
known that he watches near parties that come into the 
catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to lead 
some straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for, 
almost as much as for the blessed sunshine, is a com¬ 
panion to be miserable with him.” 


20 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates some¬ 
thing amiable in the poor fellow, at all events,” observed 
Kenyon. 

They had now reached a larger chapel than those 
heretofore seen; it was of a circular shape, and though 
hewn out of the solid mass of red sandstone, had pillars, 
and a carved roof, and other tokens of a regular archi¬ 
tectural design. Nevertheless, considered as a church, 
it was exceedingly minute, being scarcely twice a man’s 
stature in height, and only two or three paces from wall 
to wall; and while their collected torches illuminated 
this one, small, consecrated spot, the great darkness 
spread all round it, like that immenser mystery which 
envelops our little life, and into which friends vanish 
from us, one by one. 

“Why, where is Miriam?” cried Hilda. 

The party gazed hurriedly from face to face, and be¬ 
came aware that one of their party had vanished into the 
great darkness, even while they were shuddering at the 
remote possibility of such a misfortune. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB 

“ OURELY, she cannot be lost!” exclaimed Kenyon. 

“ It is but a moment since she was speaking.” 

“ No, no ! ” said Hilda, in great alarm. “ She was 
behind us all; and it is a long while since we have 
heard her voice! ” 

“ Torches ! torches ! ” cried Donatello, desperately. 
“ I will seek her, be the darkness ever .so dismal! ” 

But the guide held him back, and assured them all 
that there was no possibility of assisting their lost com¬ 
panion, unless by shouting at the very top of their 
voices. As the sound would go very far along these 
close and narrow passages, there was a fair probability 
that Miriam might hear the call, and be able to retrace 
her steps. 

Accordingly, they all—Kenyon with his bass voice; 
Donatello with his tenor; the guide with that high and 
hard Italian cry, which makes the streets of Rome so 
resonant; and Hilda with her slender scream, piercing 
farther than the united uproar of the rest — began to 
shriek, halloo, and bellow, with the utmost force of their , 
lungs. And, not to prolong the reader’s suspense, (for 
we do not particularly seek to interest him in this scene, 
telling it only on account of the trouble and strange 
entanglement which followed,) they soon heard a respon¬ 
sive call, in a female voice. 

“ It was the signorina! ” cried Donatello, joyfully. 

“Yes; it was certainly dear Miriam’s voice,” said 
Hilda. “ And here she comes! Thank Heaven! 
Thank Heaven! ” 

The figure of their friend was now discernible by her 
own torchlight, approaching out of one of the cavernous 

21 


22 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


passages. Miriam came forward, but not with the eager¬ 
ness and tremulous joy of a fearful girl, just rescued from 
a labyrinth of gloomy mystery. She made no immediate 
response to their inquiries and tumultuous congratula¬ 
tions; and, as they afterwards remembered, there was 
something absorbed, thoughtful, and self-concentrated 
in her deportment. She looked pale, as well she might, 
and held her torch with a nervous grasp, the tremor of 
which was seen in the irregular twinkling of the flame. 
This last was the chief perceptible sign of any recent 
agitation or alarm. 

“ Dearest, dearest Miriam,” exclaimed Hilda, throw¬ 
ing her arms about her friend, “where have you been 
straying from us ? Blessed be Providence, which has 
rescued you out of that miserable darkness! ” 

“ Hush, dear Hilda! ” whispered Miriam, with a strange 
little laugh. “ Are you quite sure that it was Heaven’s 
guidance which brought me back ? If so, it was by an 
odd messenger, as you will confess. See; there he 
stands.” 

Startled at Miriam’s words and manner, Hilda gazed 
into the duskiness whither she pointed, and there beheld 
a figure standing just on the doubtful limit of obscurity, 
at the threshold of the small, illuminated chapel. Kenyon 
discerned him at the same instant, and drew nearer with 
his torch ; although the guide attempted to dissuade him, 
averring that, once beyond the consecrated precincts of 
the chapel, the apparition would have power to tear him 
limb from limb. It struck the sculptor, however, when 
he afterwards recurred to these circumstances, that the 
guide manifested no such apprehension on his own ac¬ 
count as he professed on behalf of others; for he kept 
pace with Kenyon as the latter approached the figure, 
though still endeavoring to restrain him. 

In fine, they both drew near enough to get as good a 
view of the spectre as the smoky light of their torches, 
struggling with the massive gloom, could supply. 

The stranger was of exceedingly picturesque, and even 
melodramatic aspect. He was clad in a voluminous 
cloak, that seemed to be made of a buffalo’s hide, and a 


SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB 23 

pair of those goat-skin breeches, with the hair outward, 
which are still commonly worn by the peasants of the 
Roman Campagna. In this garb, they look like antique 
Satyrs ; and, in truth, the Spectre of the Catacomb might 
have represented the last survivor of that vanished race, 
hiding himself in sepulchral gloom, and mourning over 
his lost life of woods and streams. 

Furthermore, he had on a broad-brimmed, conical hat, 
beneath the shadow of which a wild visage was indis¬ 
tinctly seen, floating away, as it were, into a dusky wil¬ 
derness of moustache and beard. His eyes winked, and 
turned uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom 
midnight would be more congenial than noonday. 

On the whole, the spectre might have made a consider¬ 
able impression on the sculptor’s nerves, only that he was 
in the habit of observing similar figures, almost every 
day, reclining on the Spanish steps, and waiting for some 
artist to invite them within the magic realm of picture. 
Nor, even thus familiarized with the stranger’s peculiari¬ 
ties of appearance, could Kenyon help wondering to see 
such a personage, shaping himself so suddenly out of 
the void darkness of the catacomb. 

“ What are you ? ” said the sculptor, advancing his 
torch nearer. “ And how long have you been wandering 
here ? ” 

“A thousand and five hundred years ! ” muttered the 
guide, loud enough to be heard by all the party. “ It is 
the old pagan phantom that I told you of, who sought to 
betray the blessed saints! ” 

“ Yes ; it is a phantom ! ” cried Donatello, with a shud¬ 
der. “ Ah, dearest signorina, what fearful thing has 
beset you, in those dark corridors ! ” 

“ Nonsense, Donatello,” said the sculptor. “ The man 
is no more a phantom than yourself. The only marvel 
is, how he comes to be hiding himself in the catacomb. 
Possibly, our guide might solve the riddle.” 

The spectre himself here settled the point of his tangi¬ 
bility, at all events, and physical substance, by approach¬ 
ing a step nearer, and laying his hand on Kenyon’s arm. 

“ Inquire not what I am, nor wherefore I abide in the 


24 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


darkness,” said he, in a hoarse, harsh voice, as if a great 
deal of damp were clustering in his throat “ Henceforth, 
I am nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps. She 
came to me when I sought her not. She has called me 
forth, and must abide the consequences of my reappear¬ 
ance in the world.” 

“ Holy Virgin ! I wish the signorina joy of her prize,” 
said the guide, half to himself. “And in any case, the 
catacomb is well rid of him.” 

We need follow the scene no farther. So much is 
essential to the subsequent narrative, that, during the 
short period while astray in those tortuous passages, 
Miriam had encountered an unknown man, and led him 
forth with her, or was guided back by him, first into the 
torchlight, thence into the sunshine. 

It was the further singularity of this affair, that the 
connection, thus briefly and casually formed, did not 
terminate with the incident that gave it birth. As if her 
service to him, or his service to her, whichever it might 
be, had given him an indefeasible claim on Miriam’s 
regard and protection, the Spectre of the Catacomb never 
long allowed her to lose sight of him, from that day for¬ 
ward. He haunted her footsteps with more than the 
customary persistency of Italian mendicants, when once 
they have recognized a benefactor. For days together, 
it is true, he occasionally vanished, but always reap¬ 
peared, gliding after her through the narrow streets, or 
climbing the hundred steps of her staircase and sitting 
at her threshold. 

Being often admitted to her studio, he left his features, 
or some shadow or reminiscence of them, in many of her 
sketches and pictures. The moral atmosphere of these 
productions was thereby so influenced, that rival painters 
pronounced it a case of hopeless mannerism, which 
would destroy all Miriam’s prospects of true excellence 
in art. 

The story of this adventure spread abroad, and made 
its way beyond the usual gossip of the Forestieri, even 
into Italian circles, where, enhanced by a still potent 
spirit of superstition, it grew far more wonderful than 


SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB 25 

as above recounted. Thence, it came back among the 
Anglo-Saxons, and was communicated to the German 
artists, who so richly supplied it with romantic ornaments 
and excrescences, after their fashion, that it became a 
fantasy worthy of Tieck or Hoffmann. For nobody 
has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities 
of a marvellous tale. 

The most reasonable version of the incident, that could 
anywise be rendered acceptable to the auditors, was sub¬ 
stantially the one suggested by the guide of the catacomb, 
in his allusion to the legend of Memmius. This man, or 
demon, or man-demon, was a spy during the persecutions 
of the early Christians, probably under the Emperor 
Diocletian, and penetrated into the catacomb of St. 
Calixtus, with the malignant purpose of tracing out the 
hiding-places of the refugees. But, while he stole 
craftily through those dark corridors, he chanced to 
come upon a little chapel, where tapers were burning 
before an altar and a crucifix, and a priest was in the 
performance of his sacred office. By divine indulgence, 
there was a single moment’s grace allowed to Memmius, 
during which, had he been capable of Christian faith and 
love, he might have knelt before the cross, and received 
the holy light into his soul, and so have been blest for¬ 
ever. But he resisted the sacred impulse. As soon, 
therefore, as that one moment had glided by, the light 
of the consecrated tapers, which represent all truth, 
bewildered the wretched man with everlasting error, and 
the blessed cross itself was stamped as a seal upon his 
heart, so that it should never open to receive conviction. 

Thenceforth, this heathen Memmius has haunted the 
wide and dreary precincts of the catacomb, seeking, as 
some say, to beguile new victims into his own misery; 
but, according to other statements, endeavoring to pre¬ 
vail on any unwary visitor to take him by the hand, and 
guide him out into the daylight. Should his wiles and 
entreaties take effect, however, the man-demon would 
remain only a little while above ground. He would 
gratify his fiendish malignity by perpetrating signal 
mischief on his benefactor, and perhaps bringing some 


26 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


old pestilence or other forgotten and long-buried evil on 
society; or, possibly, teaching the modern world some 
decayed and dusty kind of crime, which the antique 
Romans knew ; and then would hasten back to the cata¬ 
comb, which, after so long haunting it, has grown his 
most congenial home. 

Miriam herself, with her chosen friends, the sculptor 
and the gentle Hilda, often laughed at the monstrous 
fictions that had gone abroad in reference to her adven¬ 
ture. Her two confidants (for such they were, on all 
ordinary subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation 
of the mystery, since undeniably a mystery there was, 
and one sufficiently perplexing itself, without any help 
from the imaginative faculty. And, sometimes re¬ 
sponding to their inquiries with a melancholy sort of 
playfulness, Miriam let her fancy run off into wilder 
fables than any which German ingenuity or Italian 
superstition had contrived. 

For example, with a strange air of seriousness over 
all her face, only belied by a laughing gleam in her 
dark eyes, she would aver that the spectre (who had 
been an artist in his mortal lifetime) had promised to 
teach her a long-lost, but invaluable secret of old 
Roman fresco-painting. The knowledge of this process 
would place Miriam at the head of modern art; the 
sole condition being agreed upon, that she should 
return with him into his sightless gloom, after enrich¬ 
ing a certain extent of stuccoed wall with the most brill¬ 
iant and lovely designs. And what true votary of art 
would not purchase unrivalled excellence, even at so 
vast a sacrifice! 

Or, if her friends still solicited a soberer account, 
Miriam replied, that, meeting the old infidel in one of 
the dismal passages of the catacomb, she had entered 
into controversy with him, hoping to achieve the glory 
and satisfaction of converting him to the Christian 
faith. For the sake of so excellent a result, she had 
even staked her own salvation against his, binding her¬ 
self to accompany him back into his penal gloom, if, 
within a twelvemonth’s space, she should not have con- 


SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB 27 

vinced him of the errors through which he had so long 
groped and stumbled. But, alas! up to the present 
time, the controversy had gone direfully in favor of the 
man-demon; and Miriam (as she whispered in Hilda’s 
ear) had awful forebodings, that, in a few more months, 
she must take an eternal farewell of the sun! 

It was somewhat remarkable, that all her romantic 
fantasies arrived at this selfsame dreary termination; 
it appeared impossible for her even to imagine any 
other than a disastrous result from her connection with 
her ill-omened attendant. 

This singularity might have meant nothing, however, 
had it not suggested a despondent state of mind, which 
was likewise indicated by many other tokens. Miriam’s 
friends had no difficulty in perceiving that, in one way 
or another, her happiness was very seriously compro¬ 
mised. Her spirits were often depressed into deep 
melancholy. If ever she was gay, it was seldom with 
a healthy cheerfulness. She grew moody, moreover, 
and subject to fits of passionate ill-temper; which 
usually wreaked itself on the heads of those who loved 
her best. Not that Miriam’s indifferent acquaintances 
were safe from similar outbreaks of her displeasure, 
especially if they ventured upon any allusion to the 
model. In such cases, they were left with little disposi¬ 
tion to renew the subject, but inclined, on the other 
hand, to interpret the whole matter as much to her dis¬ 
credit as the least favorable coloring of the facts would 
allow. 

It may occur to the reader, that there was really no 
demand for so much rumor and speculation in regard 
to an incident, which might well enough have been 
explained without going many steps beyond the limits 
of probability. The spectre might have been merely 
a Roman beggar, whose fraternity often harbor in 
stranger shelters than the catacombs ; or one of those 
pilgrims, who still journey from remote countries to 
kneel and worship at the holy sites, among which these 
haunts of the early Christians are esteemed especially 
sacred. Or, as was perhaps a more plausible theory, he 


28 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


might be a thief of the city, a robber of the Campagna, 
a political offender, or an assassin, with blood upon his 
hand; whom the negligence or connivance of the 
police allowed to take refuge in those subterranean 
fastnesses, where such outlaws have been accustomed 
to hide themselves from a far antiquity downward. Or 
he might have been a lunatic, fleeing instinctively from 
man, and making it his dark pleasure to dwell among 
the tombs, like him whose awful cry echoes afar to us 
from Scripture times. 

And, as for the stranger’s attaching himself so de¬ 
votedly to Miriam, her personal magnetism might be 
allowed a certain weight in the explanation. For what 
remains, his pertinacity need not seem so very singular 
to those who consider how slight a link serves to con¬ 
nect these vagabonds of idle Italy with any person that 
may have the ill-hap to bestow charity, or be otherwise 
serviceable to them, or betray the slightest interest in 
their fortunes. 

Thus little would remain to be accounted for, except 
the deportment of Miriam herself; her reserve, her 
brooding melancholy, her petulance, and moody passion. 
If generously interpreted, even these morbid symptoms 
might have sufficient cause in the stimulating and ex¬ 
hausting influences of an imaginative art, exercised by a 
delicate young woman, in the nervous and unwhole¬ 
some atmosphere of Rome. Such, at least, was the 
view of the case which Hilda and Kenyon endeavored 
to impress on their own minds, and impart to those 
whom their opinions might influence. 

One of Miriam’s friends took the matter sadly to heart. 
This was the young Italian. Donatello, as we have seen, 
had been an eye-witness of the stranger’s first appear¬ 
ance, and had ever since nourished a singular prejudice 
against the mysterious, dusky, death-scented apparition. 
It resembled not so much a human dislike or hatred, as 
one of those instinctive, unreasoning antipathies which 
the lower animals sometimes display, and which generally 
prove more trustworthy than the acutest insight into char¬ 
acter. The shadow of the model, always flung into the 


SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB 29 


light which Miriam diffused around her, caused no slight 
trouble to Donatello. Yet he was of a nature so re¬ 
markably genial and joyous, so simply happy, that he 
might well afford to have something subtracted from 
his comfort, and make tolerable shift to live upon what 
remained. 


CHAPTER V 


miriam’s studio 

T HE courtyard and staircase of a palace built three 
hundred years ago are a peculiar feature of modern 
Rome, and interest the stranger more than many things 
of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass 
through the grand breadth and height of a squalid 
entrance-way, and perhaps see a range of dusky pillars, 
forming a sort of cloister round the court, and in the 
intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn fragments of 
antique statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts 
that have invariably lost — what it might be well if liv¬ 
ing men could lay aside in that unfragrant atmosphere — 
the nose. Bas-reliefs, the spoil of some far older palace, 
are set in the surrounding walls, every stone of which 
has been ravished from the Coliseum, or any other im¬ 
perial ruin which earlier barbarism had not already 
levelled with the earth. Between two of the pillars, 
moreover, stands an old sarcophagus without its lid, and 
with all its more prominently projecting sculptures broken 
off; perhaps it once held famous dust, and the bony 
framework of some historic man, although now only a 
receptacle for the rubbish of the courtyard, and a half- 
worn broom. 

In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky, 
and with the hundred windows of the vast palace gazing 
down upon it, from four sides, appears a fountain. It 
brims over from one stone basin to another, or gushes 
from a Naiad’s urn, or spirts its many little jets from 
the mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely gro¬ 
tesque and artificial when Bernini, or whoever was their 
unnatural father, first produced them; but now the 
patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maiden- 

30 


MIRIAM’S STUDIO 


3* 


hair, and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the 
cracks and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature 
takes the fountain back into her great heart, and cher¬ 
ishes it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. And, 
hark, the pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash ! You 
might hear just those tinkling sounds from any tiny 
waterfall in the forest, though here they gain a delicious 
pathos from the stately echoes that reverberate their 
natural language. So the fountain is not altogether glad, 
after all its three centuries of play! 

In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared door¬ 
way gives access to the staircase, with its spacious breadth 
of low, marble steps, up which, in former times, have 
gone the princes and cardinals of the great Roman family 
who built this palace. Or they have come down, with 
still grander and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican 
or the Quirinal, there to put off their scarlet hats in 
exchange for the triple crown. But, in find, all these illus¬ 
trious personages have gone down their hereditary stair¬ 
case for the last time, leaving it to be the thoroughfare 
of ambassadors, English noblemen, American million- 
naires, artists, tradesmen, washerwomen, and people of 
every degree; all of whom find such gilded and marble- 
panelled saloons as their pomp and luxury demand, or 
such homely garrets as their necessity can pay for, within 
this one multifarious abode. Only in not a single nook of 
the palace (built for splendor, and the accommodation of 
a vast retinue, but with no vision of a happy fireside 
or any mode of domestic enjoyment) does the humblest 
or the haughtiest occupant find comfort. 

Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at 
the sculpture gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello. 
He ascended from story to story, passing lofty doorways, 
set within rich frames of sculptured marble, and climbing 
unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first piano 
and the elegance of the middle height were exchanged 
for a sort of Alpine region, cold and naked in its aspect. 
Steps of rough stone, rude wooden balustrades, a brick 
pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash on the 
walls; these were here the palatial features. Finally, he 


32 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


paused before an oaken door, on which was pinned a 
card, bearing the name of Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. 
Here Donatello knocked, and the door immediately fell 
somewhat ajar; its latch having been pulled up by means 
of a string on the inside. Passing through a little ante¬ 
room, he found himself in Miriam’s presence. 

“ Come in, wild Faun,” she said, “ and tell me the 
latest news from Arcady ! ” 

The artist was not just then at her easel, but was 
busied with the feminine task of mending a pair of 
gloves. 

There is something extremely pleasant, and even 
touching — at least, of very sweet, soft, and winning 
effect — in this peculiarity of needle-work, distinguish¬ 
ing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of 
any such by-play aside from the main business of life; 
but women — be they of what earthly rank they may, 
however gifted with intellect or genius, or endowed 
with awful beauty — have always some little handiwork 
ready to fill the tiny gap of every vacant moment. A 
needle is familiar to the fingers of them all. A queen, 
no doubt, plies it on occasion; the woman-poet can 
use it as adroitly as her pen; the woman’s eye that has 
discovered a new star turns from its glory to send the 
polished little instrument gleaming along the hem of 
her kerchief, or to darn a casual fray in her dress. And 
they have greatly the advantage of us in this respect. 
The slender thread of silk or cotton keeps them united 
with the small, familiar, gentle interests of life, the 
continually operating influences of which do so much 
for the health of the character, and carry off what would 
otherwise be a dangerous accumulation of morbid sensi¬ 
bility. A vast deal of human sympathy runs along this 
electric line, stretching from the throne to the wicker 
chair of the humblest seamstress, and keeping high 
and low in a species of communion with their kindred 
beings. Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle 
characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accom¬ 
plishments love to sew; especially as they are never more 
at home with their own hearts than while so occupied. 


MIRIAM’S STUDIO 


33 


And when the work falls in a woman’s lap, of its 
own accord, and the needle involuntarily ceases to fly, 
it is a sign of trouble, quite as trustworthy as the throb 
of the heart itself. This was what happened to Miriam. 
Even while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed 
to have forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop 
out of her thoughts, and the torn glove to fall from her 
idle fingers. Simple as he was, the young man knew 
by his sympathies that something was amiss. 

“ Dear lady, you are sad,” said he, drawing close to 
her. 

“ It is nothing, Donatello,” she replied, resuming her 
work: “ yes; a little sad, perhaps; but that is not 
strange for us people of the ordinary world, especially 
for women. You are of a cheerfuller race, my friend, 
and know nothing of this disease of sadness. But why 
do you come into this shadowy room of mine ? ” 

“ Why do you make it so shadowy ? ” asked he. 

“ We artists purposely exclude sunshine, and all but a 
partial light,” said Miriam, “ because we think it neces¬ 
sary to put ourselves at odds with nature before trying 
to imitate her. That strikes you very strangely, does it 
not ? But we make very pretty pictures sometimes, 
with our artfully arranged lights and shadows. Amuse 
yourself with some of mine, Donatello, and by and by 
I shall be in the mood to begin the portrait we were 
talking about.” 

The room had the customary aspect of a painter’s 
studio; one of those delightful spots that hardly seem 
to belong to the actual world, but rather to be the out¬ 
ward type of a poet’s haunted imagination, where there 
are glimpses, sketches, and half-developed hints of be¬ 
ings and objects grander and more beautiful than we 
can anywhere find in reality. The windows were closed 
with shutters, or deeply curtained, except one, which 
was partly open to a sunless portion of the sky, admitting 
only from high upward that partial light which, with its 
strongly marked contrast of shadow, is the first requi¬ 
site towards seeing objects pictorially. Pencil-drawings 
were pinned against the wall or scattered on the tables. 


34 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Unframed canvases turned their backs on the spectator, 
presenting only a blank to the eye, and churlishly con¬ 
cealing whatever riches of scenery or human beauty 
Miriam’s skill had depicted on the other side. 

In the obscurest part of the room Donatello was half 
startled at perceiving duskily a woman with long dark 
hair, who threw up her arms with a wild gesture of 
tragic despair, and appeared to beckon him into the 
darkness along with her. 

“ Do not be afraid, Donatello,” said Miriam, smiling 
to see him peering doubtfully into the mysterious dusk. 
“ She means you no mischief, nor could perpetrate any 
if she wished it ever so much. It is a lady of exceedingly 
pliable disposition; now a heroine of romance, and now 
a rustic maid; yet all for show; being created, indeed, 
on purpose to wear rich shawls and other garments in a 
becoming fashion. This is the true end of her being, 
although she pretends to assume the most varied duties 
and perform many parts in life, while really the poor 
puppet has nothing on earth to do. Upon my word, I 
am satirical unawares, and seem to be describing nine 
women out of ten in the person of my lay-figure. For 
most purposes she has the advantage of the sisterhood. 
Would I were like her! ” 

“ How it changes her aspect,” exclaimed Donatello, 
“to know that she is but a jointed figure. When my 
eyes first fell upon her, I thought her arms moved, as if 
beckoning me to help her in some direful peril.” 

“Are you often troubled with such sinister freaks 
of fancy ? ” asked Miriam. “ I should not have sup¬ 
posed it.” 

“ To tell you the truth, dearest signorina,” answered 
the young Italian, “ I am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy 
houses, and in the dark. I love no dark or dusky 
corners, except it be in a grotto, or among the thick 
green leaves of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, 
such as I know many in the neighborhood of my home. 
Even there, if a stray sunbeam steal in, the shadow is 
all the better for its cheerful glimmer.” 

“Yes; you are a Faun, you know,” said the fair 


MIRIAM’S STUDIO 


35 


artist, laughing at the remembrance of the scene of the 
day before. “But the world is sadly changed nowa¬ 
days; grievously changed, poor Donatello, since those 
happy times when your race used to dwell in the Arca¬ 
dian woods, playing hide-and-seek with the nymphs in 
grottoes and nooks of shrubbery. You have reappeared 
on earth some centuries too late.” 

“ I do not understand you now,” answered Donatello, 
looking perplexed; “only, signorina, I am glad to have 
my lifetime while you live; and where you are, be it in 
cities or fields, I would fain be there too.” 

“ I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in 
this way,” said Miriam, looking thoughtfully at him. 
“ Many young women would think it behooved them to 
be offended. Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare 
say. But he is a mere boy,” she added aside, “a simple 
boy, putting his boyish heart to the proof on the first 
woman whom he chances to meet. If yonder lay-figure 
had had the luck to meet him first, she would have smit¬ 
ten him as deeply as I.” 

“ Are you angry with me ? ” asked Donatello, dolo¬ 
rously. 

“ Not in the least,” answered Miriam, frankly giving 
him her hand. “ Pray look over some of these sketches 
till I have leisure to chat with you a little. I hardly 
think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait 
to-day.” 

Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel; as 
playful, too, in his general disposition, or saddening with 
his mistress’s variable mood like that or any other kindly 
animal which has the faculty of bestowing its sympa¬ 
thies more completely than men or women can ever do. 
Accordingly, as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his 
attention to a great pile and confusion of pen-and-ink 
sketches and pencil-drawings which lay tossed together 
on a table. As it chanced, however, they gave the poor 
youth little delight. 

The first that he took up was a very impressive sketch, 
in which the artist had jotted down her rough ideas for 
a picture of Jael driving the nail through the temples of 


36 THE MARBLE FAUN 

Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable power, and 
showed a touch or two that were actually life-like and 
death-like, as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael 
gave the first stroke of her murderous hammer, or as if 
she herself were Jael, and felt irresistibly impelled to 
make her bloody confession in this guise. 

Her first conception of the stern Jewess had evidently 
been that of perfect womanhood, a lovely form, and a 
high, heroic face of lofty beauty; but, dissatisfied either 
with her own work or the terrible story itself, Miriam 
had added a certain wayward quirk of her pencil, which 
at once converted the heroine into a vulgar murderess. 
It was evident that a Jael like this would be sure to 
search Sisera’s pockets as soon as the breath was out of 
his body. 

In another sketch she had attempted the story of 
Judith, which we see represented by the old masters so 
often, and in such various styles. Here, too, beginning 
with a passionate and fiery conception of the subject in 
all earnestness, she had given the last touches in utter 
scorn, as it were, of the feelings which at first took such 
powerful possession of her hand. The head of Holo- 
fernes (which by the by had a pair of twisted moustaches, 
like those of a certain potentate of the day) being fairly 
cut off, was screwing its eyes upward and twirling its 
features into a diabolical grin of triumphant malice, 
which it flung right in Judith’s face. On her part, she 
had the startled aspect that might be conceived of a cook 
if a calf’s head should sneer at her when about to be 
popped into the dinner-pot. 

Over and over again, there was the idea of woman, 
acting the part of a revengeful mischief towards man. 
It was, indeed, very singular to see how the artist’s imag¬ 
ination seemed to run on these stories of bloodshed, in 
which woman’s hand was crimsoned by the stain; and 
how, too,— in one form or another, grotesque or sternly 
sad, — she failed not to bring out the moral, that woman 
must strike through her own heart to reach a human life, 
whatever were the motive that impelled her. 

One of the sketches represented the daughter of Hero- 


MIRIAM’S STUDIO 


37 


dias receiving the head of John the Baptist in a charger. 
The general conception appeared to be taken from Ber¬ 
nardo Luini’s picture, in the Uffizzi gallery at Florence; 
but Miriam had imparted to the saint’s face a look of 
gentle and heavenly reproach, with sad and blessed eyes 
fixed upward at the maiden; by the force of which 
miraculous glance, her whole womanhood was at once 
awakened to love and endless remorse. 

These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Do¬ 
natello’s peculiar temperament. He gave a shudder ; 
his face assumed a look of trouble, fear, and disgust; he 
snatched up one sketch after another, as if about to tear 
it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings, 
he shrank back from the table and clasped his hands 
over his eyes. 

“ What is the matter, Donatello ? ” asked Miriam, 
looking up from a letter which she was now writing. 
“Ah ! I did not mean you to see those drawings. They 
are ugly phantoms that stole out of my mind ; not things 
that I created, but things that haunt me. See ! here are 
some trifles that perhaps will please you better.” 

She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which indi¬ 
cated a happier mood of mind, and one, it is to be hoped, 
more truly characteristic of the artist. Supposing neither 
of these classes of subject to show anything of her own 
individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of 
fancy, and a singular faculty of putting what looked like 
heart into her productions. The latter sketches were 
domestic and common scenes, so finely and subtilely 
idealized that they seemed such as we may see at any 
moment, and everywhere; while still there was the inde¬ 
finable something added, or taken away, which makes all 
the difference between sordid life and an earthly para¬ 
dise. The feeling and sympathy in all of them were 
deep and true. There was the scene, that comes once 
in every life, of the lover winning the soft and pure 
avowal of bashful affection from the maiden, whose 
slender form half leans towards his arm, half shrinks 
from it, we know not which. There was wedded affec¬ 
tion in its successive stages, represented in a series of 




THE MARBLE FAUN 


delicately conceived designs, touched with a holy fire, 
that burned from youth to age in those two hearts, and 
gave one identical beauty to the faces, throughout all 
the changes of feature. 

There was a drawing of an infant’s shoe, half worn 
out, with the airy print of the blessed foot within; a 
thing that would make a mother smile or weep out of 
the very depths of her heart; and yet an actual mother 
would not have been likely to appreciate the poetry of 
the little shoe, until Miriam revealed it to her. It was 
wonderful, the % depth and force with which the above, 
and other kindred subjects were depicted, and the pro¬ 
found significance which they often acquired. The 
artist, still in her fresh youth, could not probably have 
drawn any of these dear and rich experiences from her 
own life; unless, perchance, that first sketch of all, the 
avowal of maiden affection, were a remembered incident, 
and not a prophecy. But it is more delightful to believe, 
that, from first to last, they were the productions of a 
beautiful imagination, dealing with the warm and pure 
suggestions of a woman’s heart, and thus idealizing a 
truer and lovelier picture of the life that belongs to 
woman, than an actual acquaintance with some of its 
hard and dusty facts could have inspired. So consid¬ 
ered, the sketches intimated such a force and variety of 
imaginative sympathies as would enable Miriam to fill 
her life richly with the bliss and suffering of womanhood, 
however barren it might individually be. 

There was one observable point, indeed, betokening 
that the artist relinquished, for her personal self, the 
happiness which she could so profoundly appreciate for 
others. In all those sketches of common life, and the 
affections that spiritualize it, a figure was portrayed 
apart; now it peeped between the branches of a shrub¬ 
bery, amid which two lovers sat; now it was looking 
through a frosted window, from the outside, while a 
young wedded pair sat at their new fireside, within; 
and once it leaned from a chariot, which six horses 
were whirling onward in pomp and pride, and gazed 
at a scene of humble enjoyment by a cottage-door. 


MIRIAM’S STUDIO 


39 


Always it was the same figure, and always depicted 
with an expression of deep sadness; and in every in¬ 
stance, slightly as they were brought out, the face and 
form had the traits of Miriam’s own. 

“ Do you like these sketches better, Donatello ? ” 
asked Miriam. 

“Yes,” said Donatello, rather doubtfully. 

“ Not much, I fear,” responded she, laughing. “ And 
what should a boy like you — a Faun, too — know about 
the joys and sorrows, the intertwining light and shadow, 
of human life? I forgot that you were a Faun. You 
cannot suffer deeply; therefore you can but half enjoy. 
Here, now, is a subject which you can better appreciate.” 

The sketch represented merely a rustic dance, but 
with such extravagance of fun as was delightful to 
behold; and here there was no drawback, except that 
strange sigh and sadness which always come when we 
are merriest. 

“ I am going to paint the picture in oils,” said the 
artist; “ and I want you, Donatello, for the wildest 
dancer of them all. Will you sit for me, some day? 
— or, rather, dance for me ? ” 

“Oh! most gladly, signorina!” exclaimed Donatello. 
“ See; it shall be like this.” 

And forthwith he began to dance, and flit about the 
studio, like an incarnate sprite of jollity, pausing at last 
on the extremity of one toe, as if that were the only 
portion of himself, whereby his frisky nature could 
come in contact with the earth. The effect in that 
shadowy chamber, whence the artist had so carefully 
excluded the sunshine, was as enlivening as if one 
bright ray had contrived to shimmer in and frolic 
around the walls, and finally rest just in the centre of 
the floor. 

“ That was admirable ! ” said Miriam, with an approv¬ 
ing smile. “ If I can catch you on my canvas, it will be 
a glorious picture; only I am afraid you will dance out 
of it, by the very truth of the representation, just when 
I shall have given it the last touch. We will try it one 
of these days. And now, to reward you for that jolly 


4 o 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


exhibition, you shall see what has been shown to no 
one else.” 

She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture 
with its back turned towards the spectator. Reversing 
the position, there appeared the portrait of a beautiful 
woman, such as one sees only two or three, if even so 
many times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, that she 
seemed to get into your consciousness and memory, 
and could never afterwards be shut out, but haunted 
your dreams, for pleasure or for pain; holding your 
inner realm as a conquered territory, though without 
deigning to make herself at home there. 

She was very youthful, and had what was usually 
thought to be a Jewish aspect; a complexion in which 
there was no roseate bloom, yet neither was it pale; 
dark eyes, into which you might look as deeply as your 
glance would go, and still be conscious of a depth that 
you had not sounded, though it lay open to the day. 
She had black, abundant hair, with none of the vulgar 
glossiness of other women’s sable locks; if she were 
really of Jewish blood, then this was Jewish hair, and 
a dark glory such as crowns no Christian maiden’s 
head. Gazing at this portrait, you saw what Rachel 
might have been, when Jacob deemed her worth the 
wooing seven years, and seven more; or perchance 
she might ripen to be what Judith was, when she van¬ 
quished Holofernes with her beauty, and slew him for 
too much adoring it. 

Miriam watched Donatello’s contemplation of the 
picture, and seeing his simple rapture, a smile of pleas¬ 
ure brightened on her face, mixed with a little scorn; 
at least, her lips curled and her eyes gleamed, as if she 
disdained either his admiration or her own enjoyment 
of it. 

“ Then you like the picture, Donatello ? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, beyond what I can tell! ” he answered. “ So 
beautiful! —so beautiful! ” 

“And do you recognize the likeness ? ” 

# “ Signora,” exclaimed Donatello, turning from the 
picture to the artist, in astonishment that she should 


MIRIAM’S STUDIO 


4 1 


ask the question, “the resemblance is as little to be 
mistaken as if you had bent over the smooth surface 
of a fountain, and possessed the witchcraft to call forth 
the image that you made there ! It is yourself ! ” 

Donatello said the truth; and we forbore to speak 
descriptively of Miriam’s beauty earlier in our narra¬ 
tive, because we foresaw this occasion to bring it per¬ 
haps more forcibly before the reader. 

We know not whether the portrait were a flattered 
likeness; probably not, regarding it merely as the de¬ 
lineation of a lovely face; although Miriam, like all 
self-painters, may have endowed herself with certain 
graces which other eyes might not discern. Artists 
are fond of painting their own portraits; and, in 
Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds of them, in¬ 
cluding the most illustrious, in all of which there are 
autobiographical characteristics, so to speak; traits, ex¬ 
pressions, loftinesses, and amenities, which would have 
been invisible, had they not been painted from within. 
Yet their reality and truth are none the less. Miriam, 
in like manner, had doubtless conveyed some of the 
intimate results of her heart-knowledge into her own 
portrait, and perhaps wished to try whether they would 
be perceptible to so simple and natural an observer as 
Donatello. 

“ Does the expression please you ? ” she asked. 

“Yes,” said Donatello, hesitatingly; “if it would only 
smile so like the sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it 
is sadder than I thought at first. Cannot you make your¬ 
self smile a little, signorina ? ” 

“ A forced smile is uglier than a frown,” said Miriam, 
a bright, natural smile breaking out over her face, even 
as she spoke. 

“ Oh ! catch it now ! ” cried Donatello, clapping his 
hands. “ Let it shine upon the picture ! There! it has 
vanished already ! And you are sad again, very sad; 
and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil 
had befallen it in the little time since I looked last.” 

“ How perplexed you seem, my friend! ” answered 
Miriam. “ I really half believe you are a Faun, there is 


42 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


such a mystery and terror for you in these dark moods, 
which are just as natural as daylight to us people of 
ordinary mould. I advise you, at all events, to look at 
other faces with those innocent and happy eyes, and 
never more to gaze at mine! ” 

“ You speak in vain,” replied the young man, with a 
deeper emphasis than she had ever before heard in his 
voice; “ shroud yourself in what gloom you will, I must 
needs follow you.” 

“Well, well, well,” said Miriam, impatiently: “but 
leave me now; for, to speak plainly, my good friend, 
you grow a little wearisome. I walk this afternoon in 
the Borghese grounds. Meet me there, if it suits your 
pleasure.” 


CHAPTER VI 


THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE 


FTER Donatello had left the studio, Miriam her- 



self came forth, and taking her way through some 
of the intricacies of the city, entered what might be 
called either a widening of a street, or a small piazza. 
The neighborhood comprised a baker’s oven, emitting 
the usual fragrance of sour bread; a shoe shop; a linen- 
draper’s shop; a pipe and cigar shop ; a lottery office; 
a station for French soldiers, with a sentinel pacing in 
front; and a fruit stand, at which a Roman matron was 
selling the dried kernels of chestnuts, wretched little 
figs, and some bouquets of yesterday. A church, of 
course, was near at hand, the facade of which ascended 
into lofty pinnacles, whereon were perched two or three 
winged figures of stone, either angelic or allegorical, 
blowing stone trumpets in close vicinity to the upper 
windows of an old and shabby palace. This palace was 
distinguished by a feature not very common in the 
architecture of Roman edifices; that is to say, a medi¬ 
aeval tower, square, massive, lofty, and battlemented and 
machicolated at the summit. 

At one of the angles of the battlements stood a shrine 
of the Virgin, such as we see everywhere at the street- 
corners of Rome, but seldom or never, except in this 
solitary instance, at a height above the ordinary level of 
men’s views and aspirations. Connected with this old 
tower and its lofty shrine, there is a legend which we 
cannot here pause to tell; but for centuries a lamp has 
been burning before the Virgin’s image, at noon, at 
midnight, and at all hours of the twenty-four, and must 
be kept burning forever, as long as the tower shall 
stand; or else the tower itself, the palace, and whatever 


43 


44 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


estate belongs to it, shall pass from its hereditary pos¬ 
sessor, in accordance with an ancient vow, and become 
the property of the Church. 

As Miriam approached, she looked upward, and saw 
— not, indeed, the flame of the never-dying lamp, which 
was swallowed up in the broad sunlight that brightened 
the shrine — but a flock of white doves, skimming, flut¬ 
tering, and wheeling about the topmost height of the 
tower, their silver wings flashing in the pure transpar¬ 
ency of the air. Several of them sat on the ledge of 
the upper window, pushing one another off by their 
eager struggle for this favorite station, and all tapping 
their beaks and flapping their wings tumultuously 
against the panes; some had alighted in the street, far 
below, but flew hastily upward, at the sound of the 
window being thrust ajar, and opening in the middle, 
on rusty hinges, as Roman windows do. 

A fair young girl, dressed in white, showed herself at 
the aperture for a single instant, and threw forth as much 
as her two small hands could hold of some kind of food, 
for the flock of eleemosynary doves. It seemed greatly 
to the taste of the feathered people; for they tried to 
snatch beakfuls of it from her grasp, caught it in the air, 
and rushed downward after it upon the pavement. 

“ What a pretty scene this is,” thought Miriam, with 
a kindly smile, “ and how like a dove she is herself, the 
fair, pure creature! The other doves know her for a 
sister, I am sure.” 

Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace, 
and turning to the left, began to mount flight after flight 
of a staircase, which, for the loftiness of its aspiration, 
was worthy to be Jacob’s ladder, or, at all events, the 
staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which 
is heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the 
uncomfortable paving-stones, the hard harsh cries reecho¬ 
ing in the high and narrow streets, grew faint and died 
away ; as the turmoil of the world will always die, if we 
set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higher 
still; and now, glancing through the successive windows 
that threw in their narrow light upon the stairs, her 


THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE 


45 


view stretched across the roofs of the city, unimpeded 
even by the stateliest palaces. Only the domes of 
churches ascend into this airy region, and hold up their 
golden crosses on a level with her eye; except, that, 
out of the very heart of Rome, the column of Antoninus 
thrusts itself upward, with St. Paul upon its summit, the 
sole human form that seems to have kept her company. 

Finally, the staircase came to an end; save that, on 
one side of the little entry where it terminated, a flight 
of a dozen steps gave access to the roof of the tower 
and the legendary shrine. On the other side was a 
door, at which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly 
announcement of her presence than with any doubt of 
hospitable welcome; for, awaiting no response, she 
lifted the latch and entered. 

“ What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear 
Hilda! ” she exclaimed. “You breathe sweet air, above 
all the evil scents of Rome ; and even so, in your maiden 
elevation, you dwell above our vanities and passions, our 
moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for 
your nearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the 
Catholics were to make a saint of you, like your name¬ 
sake of old ; especially as you have almost avowed your¬ 
self of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lamp 
alight before the Virgin’s shrine.” 

“ No, no, Miriam ! ” said Hilda, who had come joyfully 
forward to greet her friend. “You must not call me a 
Catholic. A Christian girl—even a daughter of the 
Puritans — may surely pay honor to the idea of divine 
Womanhood, without giving up the faith of her fore¬ 
fathers. But how kind you are to climb into my dove¬ 
cote ! ” 

“ It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed,” answered 
Miriam ; “ I should think there were three hundred stairs 
at least.” 

“ But it will do you good,” continued Hilda. “ A 
height of some fifty feet above the roofs of Rome gives 
me all the advantages that I could get from fifty miles 
of distance. The air so exhilarates my spirits, that 
sometimes I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from 


4 6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


the top of my tower, in the faith that I should float 
upward.” 

“ Oh, pray don’t try it! ” said Miriam, laughing. “ If 
it should turn out that you are less than an angel, you 
would find the stones of the Roman pavement very hard; 
and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would never 
come down among us again.” 

This young American girl was an example of the free¬ 
dom of life which it is possible for a female artist to 
enjoy at Rome. She dwelt in her tower, as free to 
descend into the corrupted atmosphere of the city 
beneath, as one of her companion doves to fly down¬ 
ward into the street; — all alone, perfectly independent, 
under her own sole guardianship, unless watched over 
by the Virgin, whose shrine she tended; doing what 
she liked, without a suspicion or a shadow upon the 
snowy whiteness of her fame. The customs of artist 
life bestow such liberty upon the sex, which is elsewhere 
restricted within so much narrower limits ; and it is per¬ 
haps an indication that, whenever we admit women to 
a wider scope of pursuits and professions, we must also 
remove the shackles of our present conventional rules, 
which would then become an insufferable restraint on 
either maid or wife. The system seems to work unex- 
ceptionably in Rome; and in many other cases, as in 
Hilda’s, purity of heart and life are allowed to assert 
themselves, and to be their own proof and security, to 
a degree unknown in the society of other cities. 

Hilda, in her native land, had early shown what was 
pronounced by connoisseurs a decided genius for the 
pictorial art. Even in her school days — still not so 
very distant — she had produced sketches that were 
seized upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the 
choicest treasures of their portfolios; scenes delicately 
imagined, lacking, perhaps, the reality which comes 
only from a close acquaintance with life, but so softly 
touched with feeling and fancy that you seemed to be 
looking at humanity with angels’ eyes. With years and 
experience she might be expected to attain a darker and 
more forcible touch, which would impart to her designs 


THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE 


47 


the relief they needed. Had Hilda remained in her 
own country it is not improbable that she might have 
produced original works worthy to hang in that gallery 
of native art which, we hope, is destined to extend its 
rich length through many future centuries. An orphan, 
however, without near relatives, and possessed of a little 
property, she had found it within her possibilities to 
come to Italy; that central clime, whither the eyes and 
the heart of every artist turn, as if pictures could not 
be made to glow in any other atmosphere, as if statues 
could not assume grace and expression save in that land 
of whitest marble. 

Hilda’s gentle courage had brought her safely over 
land and sea; her mild, unflagging perseverance had 
made a place for her in the famous city, even like a 
flower that finds a chink for itself, and a little earth to 
grow in, on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may 
fasten. Here she dwelt, in her tower, possessing a 
friend or two in Rome, but no home companion except 
the flock of doves, whose cote was in a ruinous chamber 
contiguous to her own. They soon became as familiar 
with the fair-haired Saxon girl as if she were a born 
sister of their brood; and her customary white robe 
bore such an analogy to their snowy plumage that the 
confraternity of artists called Hilda the Dove, and recog¬ 
nized her aerial apartment as the Dove-cote. And while 
the other doves flew far and wide in quest of what was 
good for them, Hilda likewise spread her wings, and 
sought such ethereal and imaginative sustenance as 
God ordains for creatures of her kind. 

We know not whether the result of her Italian studies, 
so far as it could yet be seen, will be accepted as a good 
or desirable one. Certain it is that since her arrival in 
the pictorial land, Hilda seemed to have entirely lost the 
impulse of original design, which brought her thither. 
No doubt the girl’s early dreams had been of sending 
forms and hues of beauty into the visible world out of 
her own mind ; of compelling scenes of poetry and his¬ 
tory to live before men’s eyes, through conceptions and 
by methods individual to herself. But more and more, 


4 8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


as she grew familiar with the miracles of art that enrich 
so many galleries in Rome, Hilda had ceased to consider 
herself as an original artist. No wonder that this change 
should have befallen her. She was endowed with a deep 
and sensitive faculty of appreciation ; she had the gift of 
discerning and worshipping excellence in a most unusual 
measure. No other person, it is probable, recognized so 
adequately and enjoyed with such deep delight the picto¬ 
rial wonders that were here displayed. She saw — no, 
not saw, but felt — through and through a picture; she 
bestowed upon it all the warmth and richness of a 
woman’s sympathy; not by any intellectual effort, but 
by this strength of heart, and this guiding light of sym¬ 
pathy, she went straight to the central point, in which 
the master had conceived his work. Thus, she viewed 
it, as it were, with his own eyes, and hence her com¬ 
prehension of any picture that interested her was 
perfect. 

This power and depth of appreciation depended partly 
upon Hilda’s physical organization, which was at once 
healthful and exquisitely delicate ; and connected with 
this advantage, she had a command of hand, a nicety 
and force of touch, which is an endowment separate from 
pictorial genius, though indispensable to its exercise. 

It has probably happened in many other instances, as 
it did in Hilda’s case, that she ceased to aim at original 
achievement in consequence of the very gifts which so 
exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiarity with the 
works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these 
wonderful men so deeply, she was too grateful for all 
they bestowed upon her, too loyal, too humble, in their 
awful presence, to think of enrolling herself in their 
society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which they 
had achieved, the world seemed already rich enough in 
original designs, and nothing more was so desirable as to 
diffuse those selfsame beauties more widely among man¬ 
kind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, the fanciful 
ideas which she had brought from home, of great pictures 
to be conceived in her feminine mind, were flung aside, 
and, so far as those most intimate with her could discern, 


THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE 


49 


relinquished without a sigh. All that she would hence¬ 
forth attempt — and that most reverently, not to say 
religiously — was to catch and reflect some of the glory 
which had been shed upon canvas from the immortal 
pencils of old. 

So Hilda became a copyist: in the Pinacotheca of the 
Vatican, in the galleries of the Pamfili-Doria palace, the 
Borghese, the Corsini, the Sciarra, her easel was set up 
before many a famous picture of Guido, Domenichino, 
Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than 
these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands be¬ 
held the slender, girlish figure in front of some world- 
known work, absorbed, unconscious of everything around 
her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do. They 
smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream 
of copying those mighty achievements. But, if they 
paused to look over her shoulder, and had sensibility 
enough to understand what was before their eyes, they 
soon felt inclined to believe that the spirits of the old 
masters were hovering over Hilda, and guiding her deli¬ 
cate white hand. In truth, from whatever realm of bliss 
and many-colored beauty those spirits might descend, it 
would have been no unworthy errand to help so gentle 
and pure a worshipper of their genius in giving the last 
divine touch to her repetitions of their works. 

Her copies were indeed marvellous. Accuracy was 
not the phrase for them; a Chinese copy is accurate. 
Hilda’s had that evanescent and ethereal life — that flit¬ 
ting fragrance, as it were, of the originals — which it is 
as difficult to catch and retain as it would be for a sculptor 
to get the very movement and varying color of a living 
man into his marble bust. Only by watching the efforts 
of the most skilful copyists — men who spend a lifetime, 
as some of them do, in multiplying copies of a single 
picture — and observing how invariably they leave out 
just the indefinable charm that involves the last inesti¬ 
mable value, can we understand the difficulties of the 
task which they undertake. 

It was not Hilda’s general practice to attempt repro¬ 
ducing the whole of a great picture, but to select some 


So 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


high, noble, and delicate portion of it, in which the spirit 
and essence of the picture culminated: the Virgin’s celes¬ 
tial sorrow, for example, or a hovering angel, imbued with 
immortal light, or a saint with the glow of heaven in his 
dying face— and these would be rendered with her whole 
soul. If a picture had darkened into an indistinct shadow 
through time and neglect, or had been injured by clean¬ 
ing, or retouched by some profane hand, she seemed to 
possess the faculty of seeing it in its pristine glory. The 
copy would come from her hands with what the beholder 
felt must be the light which the old master had left upon 
the original in bestowing his final and most ethereal touch. 
In some instances even (at least, so those believed who 
best appreciated Hilda’s power and sensibility,) she had 
been enabled to execute what the great master had 
conceived in his imagination, but had not so perfectly 
succeeded in putting upon canvas; a result surely not 
impossible when such depth of sympathy as she possessed 
was assisted by the delicate skill and accuracy of her 
slender hand. In such cases the girl was but a finer 
instrument, a more exquisitely effective piece of mechan¬ 
ism, by the help of which the spirit of some great de¬ 
parted painter now first achieved his ideal, centuries 
after his own earthly hand, that other tool, had turned 
to dust. 

Not to describe her as too much a wonder, however, 
Hilda, or the Dove, as her well-wishers half laugh¬ 
ingly delighted to call her, had been pronounced by 
good judges incomparably the best copyist in Rome. 
After minute examination of her works, the most skilful 
artists declared that she had been led to her results by 
following precisely the same process step by step through 
which the original painter had trodden to the develop¬ 
ment of his idea. Other copyists — if such they are 
worthy to be called — attempt only a superficial imita¬ 
tion. Copies of the old masters in this sense are pro¬ 
duced by thousands; there are artists, as we have said, 
who spend their lives in painting the works, or perhaps 
one single work, of one illustrious painter over and over 
again: thus they convert themselves into Guido machines, 


THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE 


5 1 


or Raphaelic machines. Their performances, it is true, 
are often wonderfully deceptive to a careless eye; but 
working entirely from the outside, and seeking only to 
reproduce the surface, these men are sure to leave out 
that indefinable nothing, that inestimable something, 
that constitutes the life and soul through which the pic¬ 
ture gets its immortality. Hilda was no such machine 
as this; she wrought religiously, and therefore wrought 
a miracle. 

It strikes us that there is something far higher and 
nobler in all this, in her thus sacrificing herself to the 
devout recognition of the highest excellence in art, than 
there would have been in cultivating her not inconsider¬ 
able share of talent for the production of works from 
her own ideas. She might have set up for herself, and 
won no ignoble name; she might have helped to fill the 
already crowded and cumbered world with pictures, not 
destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so little, 
of the best that has been done; she might thus have 
gratified some tastes that were incapable of appreciating 
Raphael. But this could be done only by lowering the 
standard of art to the comprehension of the spectator. 
She chose the better and loftier and more unselfish part, 
laying her individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of 
enduring remembrance, at the feet of those great de¬ 
parted ones, whom she so loved and venerated; and 
therefore the world was the richer for this feeble girl. 

Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are con¬ 
fined within itself, she won out that glory by patient 
faith and self-devotion, and multiplied it for mankind. 
From the dark, chill corner of a gallery — from some 
curtained chapel in a church, where the light came sel¬ 
dom and aslant — from the prince’s carefully guarded 
cabinet, where not one eye in thousands were permitted 
to behold it — she brought the wondrous picture into 
daylight, and gave all its magic splendor for the enjoy¬ 
ment of the world. Hilda’s faculty of genuine admira¬ 
tion is one of the rarest to be found in human nature; 
and let us try to recompense her in kind by admiring 
her generous self-surrender, and her brave, humble mag- 


5 2 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


nanimity in choosing to be the handmaid of those old 
magicians, instead of a minor enchantress within a circle 
of her own. 

The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a 
virgin’s love! Would it have been worth Hilda’s while 
to relinquish this office for the sake of giving the world 
a picture or two which it would call original; pretty 
fancies of snow and moonlight; the counterpart in pic¬ 
ture of so many feminine achievements in literature! 


CHAPTER VII 


BEATRICE 

M IRIAM was glad to find the Dove in her turret- 
home ; for being endowed with an infinite activity, 
and taking exquisite delight in the sweet labor of which 
her life was full, it was Hilda’s practice to flee abroad 
betimes and haunt the galleries till dusk. Happy were 
those (but they were very few) whom she ever chose to 
be the companions of her day; they saw the art-treasures 
of Rome, under her guidance, as they had never seen 
them before. Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk 
learnedly about pictures ; she would probably have been 
puzzled by the technical terms of her own art. Not that 
she had much to say about what she most profoundly 
admired; but even her silent sympathy was so powerful 
that it drew your own along with it, endowing you with 
a second-sight that enabled you to see excellences with 
almost the depth and delicacy of her own perceptions. 

All the Anglo-Saxon denizens of Rome, by this time, 
knew Hilda by sight. Unconsciously, the poor child 
had become one of the spectacles of the Eternal City, 
and was often pointed out to strangers, sitting at her 
easel among the wild-bearded young men, the white- 
haired old ones, and the shabbily dressed, painfully 
plain women, who make up the throng of copyists. 
The old custodes knew her well, and watched over her 
as their own child. Sometimes, a young artist, instead 
of going on with a copy of the picture before which he 
had placed his easel, would enrich his canvas with an 
original portrait of Hilda at her work. A lovelier sub¬ 
ject could not have been selected, nor one which required 
nicer skill and insight in doing it anything like justice. 

53 


54 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


She was pretty at all times, in our native New England 
style, with her light-brown ringlets, her delicately tinged, 
but healthful cheek, her sensitive, intelligent, yet most 
feminine and kindly face. But, every few moments, 
this pretty and girlish face grew beautiful and striking, 
as some inward thought and feeling brightened, rose to 
the surface, and then, as it were, passed out of sight 
again; so that, taking into view this constantly recur¬ 
ring change, it really seemed as if Hilda were only 
visible by the sunshine of her soul. 

In other respects, she was a good subject for a por¬ 
trait, being distinguished by a gentle picturesqueness, 
which was perhaps unconsciously bestowed by some 
minute peculiarity of dress, such as artists seldom fail 
to assume. The effect was to make her appear like an 
inhabitant of picture-land, a partly ideal creature, not to 
be handled, nor even approached too closely. In her 
feminine self, Hilda was natural, and of pleasant deport¬ 
ment, endowed with a mild cheerfulness of temper, not 
overflowing with animal spirits, but never long despond¬ 
ent. There was a certain simplicity that made every 
one her friend, but it was combined with a subtle attri¬ 
bute of reserve, that insensibly kept those at a distance 
who were not suited to her sphere. 

Miriam was the dearest friend whom she had ever 
known. Being a year or two the elder, of longer ac¬ 
quaintance with Italy, and better fitted to deal with 
its crafty and selfish inhabitants, she had helped Hilda 
to arrange her way of life, and had encouraged her 
through those first weeks, when Rome is so dreary to 
every newcomer. 

“ But how lucky that you are at home to-day,” said 
Miriam, continuing the conversation which was begun 
many pages back. “ I hardly hoped to find you, though 
I had a favor to ask — a commission to put into your 
charge. But what picture is this ? ” 

“ See! ” said Hilda, taking her friend’s hand and 
leading her in front of the easel, “ I wanted your opin¬ 
ion of it.” 

“If you have really succeeded,” observed Miriam, 


BEATRICE 


55 

recognizing the picture at the first glance, “ it will be 
the greatest miracle you have yet achieved.” 

The picture represented simply a female head; a 
very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, envel¬ 
oped in white drapery, from beneath which strayed a 
lock or two of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxu¬ 
riance of auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, 
and met those of the spectator, but evidently with a 
strange, ineffectual effort to escape. There was a little 
redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that 
you would question whether or no the girl had been 
weeping. The whole face was quiet; there was no 
distortion or disturbance of any single feature; nor was 
it easy to see why the expression was not cheerful, or 
why a single touch of the artist’s pencil should not 
brighten it into joyousness. But, in fact, it was the very 
saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involved 
an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which 
came to the observer by a sort of intuition. It was a 
sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere 
of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remote¬ 
ness of which — while yet her face is so close before us 
— makes us shiver as at a spectre. 

“ Yes, Hilda,” said her friend, after closely examining 
the picture, “ you have done nothing else so wonderful 
as this. But by what unheard-of solicitations or secret 
interest have you obtained leave to copy Guido’s Bea¬ 
trice Cenci ? It is an unexampled favor; and the im¬ 
possibility of getting a genuine copy has filled the 
Roman picture-shops with Beatrices, gay, grievous, or 
coquettish, but never a true one among them.” 

“ There has been one exquisite copy, I have heard,” 
said Hilda, “by an artist capable of appreciating the 
spirit of the picture. It was Thompson who brought 
it away piecemeal, being forbidden (like the rest of us) 
to set up his easel before it. As for me I knew the 
Prince Barberini would be deaf to all entreaties; so I 
had no resource but to sit down before the picture, day 
after day, and let it sink into my heart. I do believe it 
is now photographed there. It is a sad face to keep so 


56 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


close to one’s heart; only, what is so very beautiful can 
never be quite a pain. Well; after studying it in this 
way, I know not how many times, I came home, and 
have done my best to transfer the image to canvas.” 

“ Here it is, then,” said Miriam, contemplating Hilda’s 
work with great interest and delight, mixed with the 
painful sympathy that the picture excited. “ Every¬ 
where we see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos, 
engravings, lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and 
representing the poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leer of 
coquetry, a merry look as if she were dancing, a piteous 
look as if she were beaten, and twenty other modes of 
fantastic mistake. But here is Guido’s very Beatrice ; 
she that slept in the dungeon, and awoke betimes, to 
ascend the scaffold. And now that you have done it, 
Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling is, that gives 
this picture such a mysterious force ? For my part, 
though deeply sensible of its influence, I cannot seize it.” 

“ Nor can I, in words,” replied her friend. “ But while 
I was painting her, I felt all the time as if she were try¬ 
ing to escape from my gaze. She knows that her sorrow 
is so strange and so immense, that she ought to be soli¬ 
tary forever, both for the world’s sake and her own ; 
and this is the reason we feel such a distance between 
Beatrice and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers. 
It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance, and to 
feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her; 
neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hope¬ 
lessness of her case better than we do. She is a fallen 
angel —fallen, and yet sinless ; and it is only this depth 
of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that keeps her 
down upon earth, and brings her within our view even 
while it sets her beyond our reach.” 

“You deem her sinless?” asked Miriam; “that is not 
so plain to me. If I can pretend to see at all into that 
dim region, whence she gazes so strangely and sadly at 
us, Beatrice’s own conscience does not acquit her of some¬ 
thing evil, and never to be forgiven! ” 

“Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as 
sin would,” said Hilda. 


BEATRICE 


57 

“Then,” inquired Miriam, “do you think that there 
was no sin in the deed for which she suffered ? ” 

“ Ah ! ” replied Hilda, shuddering, “ I really had quite 
forgotten Beatrice’s history, and was thinking of her only 
as the picture seems to reveal her character. Yes, yes; 
it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable crime, and she feels it 
to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn creature so longs 
to elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into nothing¬ 
ness! Her doom is just! ” 

“ Oh! Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel 
sword,” exclaimed her friend. “Your judgments are 
often terribly severe, though you seem all made up of 
gentleness and mercy. Beatrice’s sin may not have been 
so great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue 
possible in the circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin, 
it may have been because her nature was too feeble for 
the fate imposed upon her. Ah! ” continued Miriam, 
passionately, “ if I could only get within her conscious¬ 
ness ! — if I could but clasp Beatrice Cenci’s ghost, and 
draw it into myself! I would give my life to know 
whether she thought herself innocent, or the one great 
criminal since time began.” 

As Miriam gave utterance to these words, Hilda looked 
from the picture into her face, and was startled to observe 
that her friend’s expression had become almost exactly 
that of the portrait; as if her passionate wish and strug¬ 
gle to penetrate poor Beatrice’s mystery had been suc¬ 
cessful. 

“ Oh! for Heaven’s sake, Miriam, do not look so! ” 
she cried. “What an actress you are! And I never 
guessed it before. Ah ! now you are yourself again ! ” 
she added, kissing her. “ Leave Beatrice to me in 
future.” 

“Cover up your magical picture, then,” replied her 
friend, “ else I never can look away from it. It is strange, 
dear Hilda, how an innocent, delicate, white soul like 
yours has been able to seize the subtle mystery of this 
portrait; as you surely must, in order to reproduce it 
so perfectly. Well; we will not talk of it any more. 
Do you know, I have come to you this morning on a 


58 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


small matter of business. Will you undertake it for 
me ? ” 

“Oh, certainly,” said Hilda, laughing; “if you choose 
to trust me with business.” 

“ Nay, it is not a matter of any difficulty,” answered 
Miriam; “merely to take charge of this packet, and 
keep it for me awhile.” 

“ But why not keep it yourself ?” asked Hilda. 

“ Partly because it will be safer in your charge,” said 
her friend. “lama careless sort of person in ordinary 
things; while you, for all you dwell so high above the 
world, have certain good little housewifely ways of accu¬ 
racy and order. The packet is of some slight impor¬ 
tance ; and yet, it may be, I shall not ask you for it again. 
In a week or two, you know, I am leaving Rome. You, 
setting at defiance the malaria fever, mean to stay here 
and haunt your beloved galleries through the summer. 
Now, four months hence, unless you hear more from me, 
I would have you deliver the packet according to its 
address.” 

Hilda read the direction : it was to Signore Luca Bar- 
boni, at the Palazzo Cenci, third piano. 

“I will deliver it with my own hand,” said she, “pre¬ 
cisely four months from to-day, unless you bid me to the 
contrary. Perhaps I shall meet the ghost of Beatrice in 
that grim old palace of her forefathers.” 

“In that case,” rejoined Miriam, “do not fail to speak 
to her, and try to win her confidence. Poor thing! she 
would be all the better for pouring her heart out freely, 
and would be glad to do it, if she were sure of sympathy. 
It irks my brain and heart to think of her, all shut up 
within herself.” She withdrew the cloth that Hilda had 
drawn over the picture, and took another long look at it, 
— “ Poor sister Beatrice! for she was still a woman, 
Hilda, still a sister, be her sin or sorrow what they might. 
How well you have done it, Hilda ! I know not whether 
Guido will thank you, or be jealous of your rivalship.” 

“Jealous, indeed!” exclaimed Hilda. “If Guido had 
not wrought through me, my pains would have been 
thrown away.” 


BEATRICE 


59 


“ After all,” resumed Miriam, “if a woman had painted 
the original picture, there might have been something in 
it which we miss now. I have a great mind to under¬ 
take a copy myself, and try to give it what it lacks. 
Well; good bye. But stay ! I am going for a little air¬ 
ing to the grounds of the Villa Borghese this afternoon. 
You will think it very foolish, but I always feel the safer 
in your company, Hilda, slender little maiden as you are. 
Will you come ?” 

“ Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam,” she replied, “ I have 
set my heart on giving another touch or two to this pic¬ 
ture, and shall not stir abroad till nearly sunset.” 

“ Farewell, then,” said her visitor. “ I leave you in 
your dove-cote. What a sweet, strange life you lead here ; 
conversing with the souls of the old masters, feeding and 
fondling your sister-doves, and trimming the Virgin’s 
lamp ! Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while you 
tend her shrine ? ” 

“ Sometimes I have been moved to do so,” replied the 
Dove, blushing and lowering her eyes; “she was a woman 
once. Do you think it would be wrong?” 

“Nay, that is for you to judge,” said Miriam; “but 
when you pray next, dear friend, remember me! ” 

She went down the long descent of the lower staircase, 
and just as she reached the street the flock of doves 
again took their hurried flight from the pavement to the 
topmost window. She threw her eyes upward and beheld 
them hovering about Hilda’s head ; for after her friend’s 
departure, the girl had been more impressed than before 
by something very sad and troubled in her manner. 
She was, therefore, leaning forth from her airy abode, 
and flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a gesture 
of farewell, in the hope that these might alight upon 
Miriam’s heart and comfort its unknown sorrow a little. 
Kenyon, the sculptor, who chanced to be passing the 
head of the street, took note of that ethereal kiss, and 
wished that he could have caught it in the air and got 
Hilda’s leave to keep it. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE SUBURBAN VILLA 

D ONATELLO, while it was still a doubtful question 
betwixt afternoon and morning, set forth to keep 
the appointment which Miriam had carelessly tendered 
him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. 

The entrance to these grounds (as all my readers 
know, for everybody nowadays has been in Rome) is 
just outside of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath 
that not very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo’s 
architecture, a minute’s walk will transport the visitor 
from the small, uneasy lava stones of the Roman pave¬ 
ment into broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whence a little 
farther stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful 
seclusion. A seclusion, but seldom a solitude; for priest, 
noble, and populace, stranger and native, all who breathe 
Roman air, find free admission, and come hither to taste 
the languid enjoyment of the daydream that they call 
life. 

But Donatello’s enjoyment was of a livelier kind. He 
soon began to draw long and delightful breaths among 
those shadowy walks. Judging by the pleasure which 
the sylvan character of the scene excited in him, it might 
be no merely fanciful theory to set him down as the 
kinsman, not far remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, 
rustic creature, to whose marble image he bore so strik¬ 
ing a resemblance. How mirthful a discovery would it 
be (and yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze 
which sported fondly with his clustering locks were to 
waft them suddenly aside, and show a pair of leaf¬ 
shaped, furry ears ! What an honest strain of wildness 
would it indicate ! and into what regions of rich mystery 

60 



V 


GROUNDS OF THE VILLA BORGHESE. 



















THE SUBURBAN VILLA 


6 


would it extend Donatello’s sympathies, to be thus 
linked (and by no monstrous chain) with what we call 
the inferior tribes of being, whose simplicity, mingled 
with his human intelligence, might partly restore what 
man has lost of the divine! 

The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was 
such as arrays itself in the imagination when we read 
the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a 
softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable 
trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes 
of the Western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and 
time-honored were they, seemed to have lived for ages 
undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the 
axe any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It 
had already passed out of their dreamy old memories 
that only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled 
by the Gaul’s last assault upon the walls of Rome. As 
if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they as¬ 
sumed attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over 
the green turf in ponderous grace, throwing abroad their 
great branches without danger of interfering with other 
trees, though other majestic trees grew near enough for 
dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never 
was there a more venerable quietude than that which 
slept among their sheltering boughs; never a sweeter 
sunshine than that now gladdening the gentle gloom 
which these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over the 
swelling and subsiding lawns. 

In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted 
their dense clump of branches upon a slender length of 
stem, so high that they looked like green islands in the 
air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off that 
you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, there 
were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge 
funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round 
about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more 
open spots were all a-bloom, even so early in the season, 
with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose- 
colored, and violets that betrayed themselves by their 
rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet 


6 2 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, but larger than 
the modest little English flower, and therefore of small 
account. 

These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful 
than the finest of English park-scenery, more touching, 
more impressive, through the neglect that leaves nature 
so much to her own ways and methods. Since man sel¬ 
dom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet 
way and makes herself at home. There is enough of 
human care, it is true, bestowed long ago and still be¬ 
stowed, to prevent wildness from growing into deform¬ 
ity; and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland 
scene that seems to have been projected out of the poet’s 
mind. If the ancient Faun were other than a mere 
creation of old poetry, and could have reappeared any¬ 
where, it must have been in such a scene as this. 

In the openings of the wood there are fountains plash¬ 
ing into marble basins, the depths of which are shaggy 
with water-weeds ; or they tumble like natural cascades 
from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make 
the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here 
and there with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing 
Roman inscriptions. Statues, gray with the long corro¬ 
sion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and half re¬ 
veal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and 
broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble 
or granite porticoes, arches, are seen in the vistas of the 
wood-paths, either veritable relics of antiquity, or with so 
exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they are 
better than if really antique. At all events, grass grows 
on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers 
root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and 
fronts of temples, and clamber at large over their pedi¬ 
ments, as if this were the thousandth summer since their 
winged seeds alighted there. 

What a strange idea — what a needless labor—to con¬ 
struct artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! 
But even these sportive imitations, wrought by man in 
emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces, 
are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, 


THE SUBURBAN VILLA 


6 3 

have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result 
of all is a scene, pensive, lovely, dream-like, enjoyable 
and sad, such as is to be found nowhere save in these 
princely villa-residences in the neighborhood of Rome; a 
scene that must have required generations and ages, dur¬ 
ing which growth, decay, and man’s intelligence wrought 
kindly together, to render it so gently wild as we behold 
it now. 

The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is 
a piercing, thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea 
of so much beauty thrown away, or only enjoyable at its 
half-development, in winter and early spring, and never 
to be dwelt amongst, as the home-scenery of any human 
being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray 
through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks 
arm in arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of 
the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its loveli¬ 
ness ; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it 
beyond the scope of man’s actual possessions. But Dona¬ 
tello felt nothing of this dream-like melancholy that haunts 
the spot. As he passed among the sunny shadows, his 
spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker of 
the sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain’s gush, the dance 
of the leaf upon the bough, the woodland fragrance, the 
green freshness, the old sylvan peace and freedom, were 
all intermingled in those long breaths which he drew. 

The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead 
atmosphere in which he had wasted so many months, the 
hard pavements, the smell of ruin and decaying genera¬ 
tions, the chill palaces, the convent-bells, the heavy incense 
of altars, the life that he had led in those dark, narrow 
streets, among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and women 
— all the sense of these things rose from the young 
man’s consciousness like a cloud which had darkened 
over him without his knowing how densely. 

He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and 
was intoxicated as by an exhilarating wine. He ran 
races with himself along the gleam and shadow of the 
wood-paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough 
of an ilex, and swinging himself by it alighted far on- 


64 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


ward, as if he had flown thither through the air. In a 
sudden rapture he embraced the trunk of a sturdy tree, 
and seemed to imagine it a creature worthy of affection 
and capable of a tender response; he clasped it closely in 
his arms, as a Faun might have clasped the warm, femi¬ 
nine grace of the nymph, whom antiquity supposed to 
dwell within that rough, encircling rind. Then, in order 
to bring himself closer to the genial earth, with which his 
kindred instincts linked him so strongly, he threw himself 
at full length on the turf, and pressed down his lips, kiss¬ 
ing the violets and daisies, which kissed him back again, 
though shyly, in their maiden fashion. 

While he lay there, it was pleasant to see how the 
green and blue lizards, who had been basking on some 
rock or on a fallen pillar that absorbed the warmth of the 
sun, scrupled not to scramble over him with their small 
feet; and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs and 
sang their little roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of 
alarm; they recognized him, it may be, as something 
akin to themselves, or else they fancied that he was 
rooted and grew there; for these wild pets of nature 
dreaded him no more in his buoyant life than if a mound 
of soil and grass and flowers had long since covered his 
dead body, converting it back to the sympathies from 
which human existence had estranged it. 

All of us, after long abode in cities, have felt the blood 
gush more joyously through our veins with the first breath 
of rural air; few could feel it so much as Donatello, a 
creature of simple elements, bred in the sweet sylvan life 
of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid the 
mouldy gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature 
has been shut out for numberless centuries from those 
stony-hearted streets, to which he had latterly grown 
accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for what 
blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less 
trodden piazzas, or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves 
on the cornices of ruins. Therefore his joy was like that 
of a child that had gone astray from home, and finds him 
suddenly in his mother’s arms again. 

At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her 


THE SUBURBAN VILLA 


65 


tryst, he climbed to the tiptop of the tallest tree, and 
thence looked about him, swaying to and fro in the gentle 
breeze, which was like the respiration of that great leafy, 
living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole cir¬ 
cuit of the enchanted ground; the statues and columns 
pointing upward from among the shrubbery, the fountains 
flashing in the sunlight, the paths winding hither and 
thither, and continually finding out some nook of new 
and ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its 
marble front incrusted all over with bas-reliefs, and stat¬ 
ues in its many niches. It was as beautiful as a fairy 
palace, and seemed an abode in which the lord and lady 
of this fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth each 
morning to enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams 
of the past night could have depicted. All this he saw, 
but his first glance had taken in too wide a sweep, and it 
was not till his eyes fell almost directly beneath him, that 
Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into the path that 
led across the roots of his very tree. 

He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to 
come close to the trunk, and then suddenly dropped 
from an impending bough, and alighted at her side. It 
was as if the swaying of the branches had let a ray of 
sunlight through. The same ray likewise glimmered 
among the gloomy meditations that encompassed 
Miriam, and lit up the pale, dark beauty of her face, 
while it responded pleasantly to Donatello’s glance. 

“I hardly know,” said she, smiling, “whether you 
have sprouted out of the earth, or fallen from the 
clouds. In either case, you are welcome.” 

And they walked onward together. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH 

M IRIAM’S sadder mood, it might be, had at first an 
effect on Donatello’s spirits. It checked the joyous 
ebullition into which they would otherwise have effer¬ 
vesced when he found himself in her society, not, as 
heretofore, in the old gloom of Rome, but under that 
bright soft sky and in those Arcadian woods. He was 
silent for awhile; it being, indeed, seldom Donatello’s 
impulse to express himself copiously in words. His 
usual modes of demonstration were by the natural lan¬ 
guage of gesture, the instinctive movement of his agile 
frame, and the unconscious play of his features, which, 
within a limited range of thought and emotion, would 
speak volumes in a moment. 

By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam’s, 
and was reflected back upon himself. He began inevi¬ 
tably, as it were, to dance along the wood-path, flinging 
himself into attitudes of strange comic grace. Often, 
too, he ran a little way in advance of his companion, 
and then stood to watch her as she approached along 
the shadowy and sun-fleckered path. With every step 
she took, he expressed his joy at her nearer and nearer 
presence by what might be thought an extravagance of 
gesticulation, but which doubtless was the language of 
the natural man, though laid aside and forgotten by 
other men, now that words have been feebly substituted 
in the place of signs and symbols. He gave Miriam 
the idea of a being not precisely man, nor yet a child, 
but, in a high and beautiful sense, an animal — a crea¬ 
ture in a state of development less than what mankind 
has attained, yet the more perfect within itself for that 
very deficiency. This idea filled her mobile imagina- 

66 


THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH 67 

tion with agreeable fantasies, which, after smiling at 
them herself, she tried to convey to the young man. 

“ What are you, my friend ? ” she exclaimed, always 
keeping in mind his singular resemblance to the Faun 
of the Capitol. “ If you are, in good truth, that wild 
and pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make 
me known to your kindred. They will be found here¬ 
abouts, if anywhere. Knock at the rough rind of this 
ilex-tree, and summon forth the Dryad! Ask the 
water-nymph to rise dripping from yonder fountain, and 
exchange a moist pressure of the hand with me! Do 
not fear that I shall shrink, even if one of your rough 
cousins, a hairy Satyr, should come capering on his 
goat-legs out of the haunts of far antiquity, and propose 
to dance with me among these lawns ! And will not 
Bacchus — with whom you consorted so familiarly of 
old, and who loved you so well — will he not meet us 
here, and squeeze rich grapes into his cup for you and 
me ? ” 

Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily, indeed, in 
sympathy with the mirth that gleamed out of Miriam’s 
deep, dark eyes. But he did not seem quite to under¬ 
stand her mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain 
what kind of creature he was, or to inquire with what 
divine or poetic kindred his companion feigned to link 
him. He appeared only to know that Miriam was 
beautiful, and that she smiled graciously upon him; 
that the present moment was very sweet, and himself 
most happy with the sunshine, the sylvan scenery, and 
woman’s kindly charm, which it enclosed within its 
small circumference. It was delightful to see the 
trust which he reposed in Miriam, and his pure joy in 
her propinquity; he asked nothing, sought nothing, 
save to be near the beloved object, and brimmed over 
with ecstasy at that simple boon. A creature of the 
happy tribes below us sometimes shows the capacity of 
this enjoyment; a man, seldom or never. 

“ Donatello,” said Miriam, looking at him thought¬ 
fully, but amused, yet not without a shade of sorrow, 
“ you seem very happy; what makes you so ? ” 


68 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Because I love you ! ” answered Donatello. 

He made this momentous confession as if it were the 
most natural thing in the world; and, on her part — 
such was the contagion of his simplicity — Miriam 
heard it without anger or disturbance, though with no 
responding emotion. It was as if they had strayed 
across the limits of Arcadia, and come under a civil 
polity where young men might avow their passion with 
as little restraint as a bird pipes its notes to a similar 
purpose. 

“ Why should you love me, foolish boy ? ” said she. 
“We have no points of sympathy at all. There are 
not two creatures more unlike, in this wide world, than 
you and I! ” 

“You are yourself, and I am Donatello,” replied he. 
“Therefore I love you ! There needs no other reason.” 

Certainly, there was no better or more explicable 
reason. It might have been imagined that Donatello’s 
unsophisticated heart would be more readily attracted 
to a feminine nature of clear simplicity like his own, than 
to one already turbid with grief or wrong, as Miriam’s 
seemed to be. Perhaps, on the other hand, his character 
needed the dark element, which it found in her. The 
force and energy of will, that sometimes flashed through 
her eyes, may have taken him captive; or, not improb¬ 
ably, the varying lights and shadows of her temper, now 
so mirthful, and anon so sad with mysterious gloom, had 
bewitched the youth. Analyze the matter as we may, 
the reason assigned by Donatello himself was as satis¬ 
factory as we are likely to attain. 

Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that 
had passed. He held out his love so freely, in his open 
palm, that she felt it could be nothing but a toy, which 
she might play with for an instant, and give back again. 
And yet Donatello’s heart was so fresh a fountain, that, 
had Miriam been more world-worn than she was, she 
might have found it exquisite to slake her thirst with the 
feelings that welled up and brimmed over from it. She 
was far, very far, from the dusty mediaeval epoch, when 
some women have a taste for such refreshment. Even 


THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH 69 

for her, however, there was an inexpressible charm in 
the simplicity that prompted Donatello’s words and 
deeds; though, unless she caught them in precisely the 
true light, they seemed but folly, the offspring of a 
maimed or imperfectly developed intellect. Alternately, 
she almost admired, or wholly scorned him, and knew 
not which estimate resulted from the deeper apprecia¬ 
tion. But it could not, she decided for herself, be other 
than an innocent pastime, if they two — sure to be 
separated by their different paths in life, to-morrow — 
were to gather up some of the little pleasures that 
chanced to grow about their feet, like the violets and 
wood-anemones, to-day. 

Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give 
him what she still held to be a needless warning against 
an imaginary peril. 

“ If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a 
dangerous person,” said she. “ If you follow my foot¬ 
steps, they will lead you to no good. You ought to be 
afraid of me.” 

“ I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe,” 
he replied. 

“And well you may, for it is full of malaria,” said 
Miriam; she went on, hinting at an intangible confes¬ 
sion, such as persons with overburdened hearts often 
make to children or dumb animals, or to holes in the 
earth, where they think their secrets may be at once 
revealed and buried. “Those who come too near me 
are in danger of great mischiefs, I do assure you. Take 
warning therefore! It is a sad fatality that has brought 
you from your home among the Apennines—some rusty 
old castle, I suppose, with a village at its foot, and an 
Arcadian environment of vineyards, fig-trees, and olive- 
orchards — a sad mischance, I say, that has transported 
you to my side. You have had a happy life hitherto — 
have you not, Donatello ? ” 

“Oh, yes,” answered the young man; and, though 
not of a retrospective turn, he made the best effort he 
could to send his mind back into the past. “ I remem¬ 
ber thinking it happiness to dance with the contadinas 


yo 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


at a village feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vin¬ 
tage-time, and the old, ripened wine, which our podere 
is famous for in the cold winter evenings; and to de¬ 
vour great, luscious figs, and apricots, peaches, cherries, 
and melons. I was often happy in the woods, too, with 
hounds and horses, and very happy in watching all 
sorts of creatures and birds that haunt the leafy soli¬ 
tudes. But never half so happy as now ! ” 

“ In these delightful groves? ” she asked. 

“Here, and with you,” answered Donatello. “Just 
as we are now.” 

“What a fulness of content in him ! How silly, and 
how delightful! ” said Miriam to herself. Then address¬ 
ing him again: “ But, Donatello, how long will this 
happiness last ? ” 

“ How long! ” he exclaimed; for it perplexed him 
even more to think of the future than to remember the 
past. “ Why should it have any end ? How long ! For¬ 
ever ! forever! forever ! ” 

“ The child! the simpleton ! ” said Miriam, with sud¬ 
den laughter, and checking it as suddenly. “ But is he 
a simpleton-indeed ? Here, in those few natural words, 
he has expressed that deep sense, that profound convic¬ 
tion of its own immortality, which genuine love never 
fails to bring. He perplexes me,—yes, and bewitches 
me,—wild, gentle, beautiful creature that he is! It is 
like playing with a young greyhound ! ” 

Her eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a 
smile shone out of them. Then first she became sensi¬ 
ble of a delight and grief at once in feeling this zephyr 
of a new affection, with its untainted freshness, blow 
over her weary, stifled heart, which had no right to 
be revived by it. The very exquisiteness of the enjoy¬ 
ment made her know that it ought to be a forbidden 
one. 

“ Donatello,” she hastily exclaimed, “ for your own 
sake, leave me ! It is not such a happy thing as you 
imagine it, to wander in these woods with me, a girl 
from another land, burdened with a doom that she tells 
to none. I might make you dread me, — perhaps hate 


THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH 71 

me, — if I chose; and I must choose, if I find you lov¬ 
ing me too well! ” 

“ I fear nothing! ” said Donatello, looking into her 
unfathomable eyes with perfect trust. “ I love always! ” 

“ I speak in vain,” thought Miriam within herself. 
“Well, then, for this one hour, let me be such as he 
imagines me. To-morrow will be time enough to come 
back to my reality. My reality! what is it? Is the 
past so indestructible ? the future so immitigable ? Is 
the dark dream, in which I walk, of such solid, stony 
substance, that there can be no escape out of its dun¬ 
geon ? Be it so! There is, at least, that ethereal 
quality in my spirit, that it can make me as gay as 
Donatello himself — for this one hour ! ” 

And immediately she brightened up, as if an inward 
flame, heretofore stifled, were now permitted to fill her 
with its happy lustre, glowing through her cheeks and 
dancing in her eye-beams. 

Donatello, brisk and cheerful as he seemed before, 
showed a sensibility to Miriam’s gladdened mood by 
breaking into still wilder and ever-varying activity. He 
frisked around her, bubbling over with joy, which clothed 
itself in words that had little individual meaning, and in 
snatches of song that seemed as natural as bird-notes. 
Then they both laughed together, and heard their own 
laughter returning in the echoes, and laughed again at 
the response ; so that the ancient and solemn grove be¬ 
came full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A 
bird happening to sing cheerily, Donatello gave a pecul¬ 
iar call, and the little feathered creature came fluttering 
about his head, as if it had known him through many 
summers. 

“ How close he stands to nature! ” said Miriam, ob¬ 
serving this pleasant familiarity between her companion 
and the bird. “ He shall make me as natural as himself 
for this one hour.” 

As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she 
felt more and more the influence of his elastic tem¬ 
perament. Miriam was an impressible and impulsive 
creature, as unlike herself, in different moods, as if a 


72 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


melancholy maiden and a glad one were both bound 
within the girdle about her waist, and kept in magic 
thraldom by the brooch that clasped it. Naturally, it 
is true, she was the more inclined to melancholy, yet 
fully capable of that high frolic of the spirits which richly 
compensates for many gloomy hours ; if her soul was apt 
to lurk in the darkness of a cavern, she could sport 
madly in the sunshine before the cavern’s mouth. Ex¬ 
cept the freshest mirth of animal spirits, like Donatello’s, 
there is no merriment, no wild exhilaration, comparable 
to that of melancholy people escaping from the dark 
region in which it is their custom to keep themselves 
imprisoned. 

So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his 
own ground. They ran races with each other, side by 
side, with shouts and laughter; they pelted one another 
with early flowers, and gathering them up again, twined 
them with green leaves into garlands for both their heads. 
They played together like children, or creatures of im¬ 
mortal youth. So much had they flung aside the sombre 
habitudes of daily life, that they seemed born to %e 
sportive forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness 
instead of any deeper joy. It was a glimpse far back¬ 
ward into Arcadian life, or, farther still, into the Golden 
Age, before mankind was burdened with sin and sorrow, 
and before pleasure had been darkened with those 
shadows that bring it into high relief, and make it 
happiness. 

“ Hark ! ” cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was 
about to bind Miriam’s fair hands with flowers, and lead 
her along in triumph, “ there is music somewhere in the 
grove ! ” 

“ It is your kinsman Pan, most likely,” said Miriam, 
“playing on his pipe. Let us go seek him, and make 
him puff out his rough cheeks and pipe his merriest air! 
Come; the strain of music will guide us onward like a 
gayly colored thread of silk.” 

“Or like a chain of flowers,” responded Donatello, 
drawing her along by that which he had twined. “ This 
way! — Come ! ” 


CHAPTER X 

THE SYLVAN DANCE 

A S the music came fresher on their ears, they danced 
to its cadence, extemporizing new steps and atti¬ 
tudes. Each varying movement had a grace which might 
have been worth putting into marble, for the long delight 
of days to come, but vanished with the movement that 
gave it birth, and was effaced from memory by another. 
In Miriam’s motion, freely as she flung herself into the 
frolic of the hour, there was still an artful beauty; in 
Donatello’s, there was a charm of indescribable gro¬ 
tesqueness, hand in hand with grace; sweet, bewitching, 
most provocative of laughter, and yet akin to pathos, so 
deeply did it touch the heart. This was the ultimate 
peculiarity, the final touch, distinguishing between the 
sylvan creature and the beautiful companion at his side. 
Setting apart only this, Miriam resembled a Nymph, as 
much as Donatello did a Faun. 

There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played 
the sylvan character as perfectly as he. Catching 
glimpses of her, then, you would have fancied that an 
oak had sundered its rough bark to let her dance freely 
forth, endowed with the same spirit in her human form 
as that which rustles in the leaves; or that she had 
emerged through the pebbly bottom of a fountain, a 
water-nymph to play and sparkle in the sunshine, flinging 
a quivering light around her, and suddenly disappearing 
in a shower of rainbow drops. 

As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so 
in Miriam there were symptoms that the frolic of her 
spirits would at last tire itself out. 

“ Ah ! Donatello,” cried she, laughing, as she stopped 
73 


74 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


to take breath; “ you have an unfair advantage over 
me! I am no true creature of the woods; while you 
are a real Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook 
just now, methought I had a peep at the pointed ears.” 

Donatello snapped his fingers above his head, as 
fauns and satyrs taught us first to do, and seemed to 
radiate jollity out of his whole nimble person. Never¬ 
theless, there was a kind of dim apprehension in his 
face, as if he dreaded that a moment’s pause might 
break the spell, and snatch away the sportive com¬ 
panion whom he had waited for through so many 
dreary months. 

“Dance! dance!” cried he, joyously. “If we take 
breath, we shall be as we were yesterday. There, now, 
is the music, just beyond this clump of trees. Dance, 
Miriam, dance! ” 

They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of 
which there are many in that artfully constructed wil¬ 
derness) set round with stone seats, on which the aged 
moss had kindly essayed to spread itself ikstead of cush¬ 
ions. On one of the stone benches sat the musicians, 
whose strains had enticed our wild couple thitherward. 
They proved to be a vagrant band, such as Rome, and 
all Italy, abounds with; comprising a harp, a flute, and 
a violin, which, though greatly the worse for wear, the 
performers had skill enough to provoke and modulate 
into tolerable harmony. It chanced to be a feast-day; 
and, instead of playing in the sun-scorched piazzas of 
the city, or beneath the windows of some unresponsive 
palace, they had bethought themselves to try the echoes 
of these woods; for, on the festas of the Church, Rome 
scatters its merry-makers all abroad, ripe for the dance 
or any other pastime. 

As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the 
trees the musicians scraped, tinkled, or blew, each ac¬ 
cording to his various kind of instrument, more inspir- 
ingly than ever. A dark-cheeked little girl, with bright 
black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round 
with tinkling bells, and thumping it on its parchment 
head. Without interrupting his brisk, though measured 


THE SYLVAN DANCE 


75 


movement, Donatello snatched away this unmelodious 
contrivance, and flourishing it above his head, produced 
music of indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky 
step, and striking the tambourine, and ringing its little 
bells, all in one jovial act. 

It might be that there was magic in the sound, or 
contagion, at least, in the spirit which had got posses¬ 
sion of Miriam and himself, for very soon a number of 
festal people were drawn to the spot, and struck into 
the dance, singly, or in pairs, as if they were all gone 
mad with jollity. Among them were some of the ple¬ 
beian damsels whom we meet bareheaded in the Roman 
streets, with silver stilettos thrust through their glossy 
hair; the contadinas, too, from the Campagna and the 
villages, with their rich and picturesque costumes of 
scarlet and all bright hues, such as fairer maidens might 
not venture to put on. Then came the modern Roman 
from Trastevere, perchance, with his old cloak drawn about 
him like a toga, which anon, as his active motion heated 
him, he flung aside. Three French soldiers capered 
freely into the throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their 
short swords dangling at their sides; and three Ger¬ 
man artists in gray flaccid hats and flaunting beards; 
and one of the Pope’s Swiss guardsmen in the strange 
motley garb which Michael Angelo contrived for them. 
Two young English tourists (one of them a lord) took 
contadine partners and dashed in, as did also a shaggy 
man in goat-skin breeches, who looked like rustic Pan 
in person, and footed it as merrily as he. Besides the 
above there was a herdsman or two from the Campagna, 
and a few peasants in sky-blue jackets, and small-clothes 
tied with ribbons at the knees; haggard and sallow were 
these last, poor serfs, having little to eat and nothing 
but the malaria to breathe; but still they plucked up 
a momentary spirit and joined hands in Donatello’s 
dance. 

Here, as it seemed, had the Golden Age come back 
again within the precincts of this sunny glade, thawing 
mankind out of their cold formalities, releasing them 
from irksome restraint, mingling them together in such 


76 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old bosom 
of the earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsteps. 
The sole exception to the geniality of the moment, as 
we have understood, was seen in a countryman of our 
own, who sneered at the spectacle, and declined to com¬ 
promise his dignity by making part of it. 

The harper thrummed with rapid fingers; the violin- 
player flashed his bow back and forth across the strings; 
the flautist poured his breath in quick puffs of jollity, 
while Donatello shook the tambourine above his head, 
and led the merry throng with unweariable steps. As 
they followed one another in a wild ring of mirth, it 
seemed the realization of one of those bas-reliefs where 
a dance of nymphs, satyrs, or bacchanals is twined around 
the circle of an antique vase; or it was like the sculp¬ 
tured scene on the front and sides of a sarcophagus, 
where, as often as any other device, a festive procession 
mocks the ashes and white bones that are treasured up 
within. You might take it for a marriage-pageant; but 
after a while, if you look at these merry-makers, follow¬ 
ing them from end to end of the marble coffin, you doubt 
whether their gay movement is leading them to a happy 
close. A youth has suddenly fallen in the dance; a 
chariot is overturned and broken, flinging the charioteer 
headlong to the ground ; a maiden seems to have grown 
faint or weary and is drooping on the bosom of a friend. 
Always some tragic incident is shadowed forth or thrust 
sidelong into the spectacle; and when once it has caught 
your eye you can look no more at the festal portions of 
the scene except with reference to this one slightly sug¬ 
gested doom and sorrow. 

As in its mirth, so in the darker characteristic here 
alluded to, there was an analogy between the sculptured 
scene on the sarcophagus and the wild dance which we 
have been describing. In the midst of its madness and 
riot Miriam found herself suddenly confronted by a 
strange figure that shook its fantastic garments in the 
air, and pranced before her on its tiptoes, almost vying 
with the agility of Donatello himself. It was the model. 

A moment afterwards Donatello was aware that she 


THE SYLVAN DANCE 


77 


had retired from the dance. He hastened towards her, 
and flung himself on the grass beside the stone bench 
on which Miriam was sitting. But a strange distance 
and unapproachableness had all at once enveloped her; 
and though he saw her within reach of his arm, yet the 
light of her eyes seemed as far off as that of a star, nor 
was there any warmth in the melancholy smile with 
which she regarded him. 

“ Come back ! ” cried he. “ Why should this happy 
hour end so soon ? ” 

“ It must end here, Donatello,” said she, in answer to 
his words and outstretched hand; “ and such hours, I 
believe, do not often repeat themselves in a lifetime. Let 
me go, my friend ; let me vanish from you quietly among 
the shadows of these trees. See, the companions of our 
pastime are vanishing already ! ” 

Whether it was that the harp-strings were broken, the 
violin out of tune, or the flautist out of breath, so it 
chanced that the music had ceased, and the dancers 
come abruptly to a pause. All that motley throng of 
rioters was dissolved as suddenly as it had been drawn 
together. In Miriam’s remembrance the scene had a 
character of fantasy. It was as if a company of satyrs, 
fauns, and nymphs, with Pan in the midst of them, had 
been disporting themselves in these venerable woods 
only a moment ago; and now in another moment, be¬ 
cause some profane eye had looked at them too closely, 
or some intruder had cast a shadow on their mirth, the 
silver pageant had utterly disappeared. If a few of the 
merry-makers lingered among the trees, they had hidden 
their racy peculiarities under the garb and aspect of 
ordinary people, and sheltered themselves in the weary 
commonplace of daily life. Just an instant before it was 
Arcadia and the Golden Age. The spell being broken, 
it was now only that old tract of pleasure-ground, close by 
the people’s gate of Rome, — a tract where the crimes 
and calamities of ages, the many battles, blood recklessly 
poured out, and deaths of myriads, have corrupted all 
the soil, creating an influence that makes the air deadly 
to human lungs. 


78 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ You must leave me,” said Miriam to Donatello, more 
imperatively than before : “ have I not said it ? Go ; 
and look not behind you.” 

“ Miriam,” whispered Donatello, grasping her hand 
forcibly, “who is it that stands in the shadow yonder, 
beckoning you to follow him ? ” 

“Hush; leave me!” repeated Miriam. “Your hour 
is past; his hour has come.” 

Donatello still gazed in the direction which he had 
indicated, and the expression of his face was fearfully 
changed, being so disordered, perhaps with terror—at 
all events with anger and invincible repugnance — that 
Miriam hardly knew him. His lips were drawn apart 
so as to disclose his set teeth, thus giving him a look of 
animal rage, which we seldom see except in persons of 
the simplest and rudest natures. A shudder seemed to 
pass through his very bones. 

“ I hate him ! ” muttered he. 

“ Be satisfied ; I hate him too ! ” said Miriam. 

She had no thought of making this avowal, but was 
irresistibly drawn to it by the sympathy of the dark 
emotion in her own breast with that so strongly ex¬ 
pressed by Donatello. Two drops of water or of blood 
do not more naturally flow into each other than did her 
hatred into his. 

“ Shall I clutch him by the throat ? ” whispered Dona¬ 
tello, with a savage scowl. “ Bid me do so, and we are 
rid of him forever.” 

“ In Heaven’s name, no violence! ” exclaimed Miriam, 
affrighted out of the scornful control which she had 
hitherto held over her companion, by the fierceness that 
he so suddenly developed. “ Oh, have pity on me, Dona¬ 
tello, if for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my 
wretchedness I let myself be your playmate for this one 
wild hour. Follow me no farther. Henceforth, leave 
me to my doom. Dear friend, — kind, simple, loving 
friend, — make me not more wretched by the remem¬ 
brance of having thrown fierce hates or loves into the 
wellspring of your happy life ! ” 

“ Not follow you ! ” repeated Donatello, soothed from 


THE SYLVAN DANCE 


79 


anger into sorrow, less by the purport of what she said, 
than by the melancholy sweetness of her voice. “Not 
follow you ! What other path have I ? ” 

“We will talk of it once again,” said Miriam, still 
soothingly ; “ soon — to-morrow — when you will; only 
leave me now.” 


CHAPTER XI 


FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES 

I N the Borghese Grove, so recently uproarious with 
merriment and music, there remained only Miriam 
and her strange follower. 

A solitude had suddenly spread itself around them. It 
perhaps symbolized a peculiar character in the relation of 
these two, insulating them, and building up an insuperable 
barrier between their life-streams and other currents, 
which might seem to flow in close vicinity. For it is 
one of the chief earthly incommodities of some species 
of misfortune, or of a great crime, that it makes the 
actor in the one, or the sufferer of the other, an alien in 
the world, by interposing a wholly unsympathetic medium 
betwixt himself and those whom he yearns to meet. 

Owing, it may be, to this moral estrangement, — this 
chill remoteness of their position, — there have come to 
us but a few vague whisperings of what passed in Mir¬ 
iam’s interview that afternoon with the sinister personage 
who had dogged her footsteps ever since the visit to the 
catacomb. In weaving these mystic utterances into a 
continuous scene, we undertake a task resembling in its 
perplexity that of gathering up and piecing together the 
fragments of a letter which has been torn and scattered 
to the winds. Many words of deep significance, many 
entire sentences, and those possibly the most important 
ones, have flown too far on the winged breeze to be re¬ 
covered. If we insert our own conjectural amendments, 
we perhaps give a purport utterly at variance with the 
true one. Yet unless we attempt something in this way, 
there must remain an unsightly gap, and a lack of con¬ 
tinuousness and dependence in our narrative; so that it 
would arrive at certain inevitable catastrophes without 
due warning of their imminence. 

80 


FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES 81 


Of so much we are sure, that there seemed to be a 
sadly mysterious fascination in the influence of this ill- 
omened person over Miriam; it was such as beasts and 
reptiles of subtle and evil nature sometimes exercise upon 
their victims. Marvellous it was to see the hopelessness 
with which —being naturally of so courageous a spirit — 
she resigned herself to the thraldom in which he held 
her. That iron chain, of which some of the massive 
links were round her feminine waist, and the others in 
his ruthless hand, — or which, perhaps, bound the pair 
together by a bond equally torturing to each, — must have 
been forged in some such unhallowed furnace as is only 
kindled by evil passions and fed by evil deeds. 

Yet, let us trust, there may have been no crime in 
Miriam, but only one of those fatalities which are among 
the most insoluble riddles propounded to mortal compre¬ 
hension ; the fatal decree by which every crime is made 
to be the agony of many innocent persons, as well as of 
the single guilty one. 

It was, at any rate, but a feeble and despairing kind of 
remonstrance which she had now the energy to oppose 
against his persecution. 

“ You follow me too closely,” she said, in low, faltering 
accents; “ you allow me too scanty room to draw my 
breath. Do you know what will be the end of this ? ” 

“ I know well what must be the end,” he replied. 

“ Tell me, then,” said Miriam, “ that I may compare 
your foreboding with my own. Mine is a very dark 
one.” 

“ There can be but one result, and that soon,” answered 
the model. “ You must throw off your present mask and 
assume another. You must vanish out of the scene: 
quit Rome with me, and leave no trace whereby to follow 
you. It is in my power, as you well know, to compel 
your acquiescence in my bidding. You are aware of the 
penalty of a refusal.” 

“ Not that penalty with which you would terrify me,” 
said Miriam; “ another there may be, but not so griev¬ 
ous.” 

“What is that other?” he inquired. 


82 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Death ! simply, death! ” she answered. 

“ Death,” said her persecutor, “ is not so simple and 
opportune a thing as you imagine. You are strong and 
warm with life. Sensitive and irritable as your spirit is, 
these many months of trouble, this latter thraldom in 
which I hold you, have scarcely made your cheek paler 
than I saw it in your girlhood. Miriam, — for I forbear 
to speak another name, at which these leaves would shiver 
above our heads, — Miriam, you cannot die ! ” 

“ Might not a dagger find my heart ? ” said she, for the 
first time meeting his eyes. “Would not poison make 
an end of me ? Will not the Tiber drown me ? ” 

“It might,” he answered; “for I allow that you are 
mortal. But, Miriam, believe me, it is not your fate to 
die while there remains so much to be sinned and suffered 
in the world. We have a destiny which we must needs 
fulfil together. I, too, have struggled to escape it. I 
was as anxious as yourself to break the tie between us 
— to bury the past in a fathomless grave — to make it 
impossible that we should ever meet, until you confront 
me at the bar of Judgment! You little can imagine 
what steps I took to render all this secure; and what 
was the result ? Our strange interview in the bowels of 
the earth convinced me of the futility of my design.” 

“ Ah, fatal chance ! ” cried Miriam, covering her face 
with her hands. 

“Yes, your heart trembled with horror when you rec¬ 
ognized me,” rejoined he; “but you did not guess that 
there was an equal horror in my own! ” 

“ Why would not the weight of earth above our heads 
have crumbled down upon us both, forcing us apart, but 
burying us equally ? ” cried Miriam, in a burst of vehe¬ 
ment passion. “Oh, that we could have wandered in 
those dismal passages till we both perished, taking oppo¬ 
site paths in the darkness, so that when we lay down to 
die our last breaths might not mingle! ” 

“ It were vain to wish it,” said the model. “ In all 
that labyrinth of midnight paths, we should have found 
one another out to live or die together. Our fates cross 
and are entangled. The threads are twisted into a strong 


FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES 83 

cord, which is dragging us to an evil doom. Could the 
knots be severed, we might escape. But neither can 
your slender fingers untie those knots, nor my masculine 
force break them. We must submit! ” 

“Pray for rescue, as I have,” exclaimed Miriam. 
“ Pray for deliverance from me, since I am your evil 
genius, as you mine. Dark as your life has been, I have 
known you to pray in times past! ” 

At these words of Miriam, a tremor and horror ap¬ 
peared to seize upon her persecutor, insomuch that he 
shook and grew ashy pale before her eyes. In this man’s 
memory, there was something that made it awful for him 
to think of prayer ; nor would any torture be more intol¬ 
erable, than to be reminded of such divine comfort and 
succor as await pious souls merely for the asking. This 
torment was perhaps the token of a native temperament 
deeply susceptible of religious impressions, but which 
had been wronged, violated, and debased, until, at length, 
it was capable only of terror from the sources that were 
intended for our purest and ^loftiest consolation. He 
looked so fearfully at her, and with such intense pain 
struggling in his eyes, that Miriam felt pity. 

And, now, all at once, it struck her that he might be 
mad. It was an idea that had never before seriously 
occurred to her mind, although, as soon as suggested, it 
fitted marvellously into many circumstances that lay 
within her knowledge. But, alas! such was her evil 
fortune, that, whether mad or no, his power over her 
remained the same, and was likely to be used only the 
more tyrannously, if exercised by a lunatic. 

“ I would not give you pain,” she said, soothingly; 
“ your faith allows you the consolations of penance and 
absolution. Try what help there may be in these, and 
leave me to myself.” 

“ Do not think it, Miriam,” said he; “ we are bound 
together, and can never part again.” 

“Why should it seem so impossible?” she rejoined. 
“ Think how I had escaped from all the past! I had 
made for myself a new sphere, and found new friends, 
new occupations, new hopes and enjoyments. My heart, 


8 4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


methinks, was almost as unburdened as if there had 
been no miserable life behind me. The human spirit 
does not perish of a single wound, nor exhaust itself in a 
single trial of life. Let us but keep asunder, and all may 
go well for both.” 

“We fancied ourselves forever sundered,” he replied. 
“Yet we met once, in the bowels of the earth ; and, were 
we to part now, our fates would fling us together again in 
a desert, on a mountain-top, or in whatever spot seemed 
safest. You speak in vain, therefore.” 

“You mistake your own will for an iron necessity,” 
said Miriam; “ otherwise, you might have suffered me to 
glide past you like a ghost, when we met among those 
ghosts of ancient days. Even now you might bid me 
pass as freely.” 

“Never!” said he, with unmitigable will; “your re¬ 
appearance has destroyed the work of years. You know 
the power that I have over you. Obey my bidding; or, 
within short time it shall be exercised : nor will I cease 
to haunt you till the moment comes.” 

“Then,” said Miriam, more calmly, “ I foresee the end, 
and have already warned you of it. It will be death! ” 

“Your own death, Miriam — or mine?” he asked, 
looking fixedly at her. 

“ Do you imagine me a murderess ? ” said she, shud¬ 
dering; “you, at least, have no right to think me so ! ” 

“Yet,” rejoined he, with a glance of dark meaning, 
“ men have said that this white hand had once a crimson 
stain.” He took her hand as he spoke, and held it in his 
own, in spite of the repugnance, amounting to nothing 
short of agony, with which she struggled to regain it. 
Holding it up to the fading light, (for there was already 
dimness among the trees,) he appeared to examine it 
closely, as if to discover the imaginary blood-stain with 
which he taunted her. He smiled as he let it go. “ It 
looks very white,” said he ; “but I have known hands as 
white, which all the water in the ocean would not have 
washed clean.” 

“ It had no stain,” retorted Miriam, bitterly, “ until 
you grasped it in your own.” 



THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO. 























FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES 85 

The wind has blown away whatever else they may 
have spoken. 

They went together towards the town, and, on their 
way, continued to make reference, no doubt, to some 
strange and dreadful history of their former life, belong¬ 
ing equally to this dark man and to the fair and youthful 
woman, whom he persecuted. In their words, or in the 
breath that uttered them, there seemed to be an odor of 
guilt, and a scent of blood. Yet, how can we imagine 
that a stain of ensanguined crime should attach to Mir¬ 
iam ! Or, how, on the other hand, should spotless inno¬ 
cence be subjected to a thraldom like that which she 
endured from the spectre, whom she herself had evoked 
out of the darkness ! Be this as it might, Miriam, we 
^have reason to believe, still continued to beseech him, 
'humbly, passionately, wildly, only to go his way, and 
leave her free to follow her own sad path. 

Thus they strayed onward through the green wilder¬ 
ness of the Borghese grounds, and soon came near the 
city wall, where, had Miriam raised her eyes, she might 
have seen Hilda and the sculptor leaning on the parapet. 
But she walked in a mist of trouble, and could distin¬ 
guish little beyond its limits. As they came within pub¬ 
lic observation, her persecutor fell behind, throwing off 
the imperious manner which he had assumed during 
their solitary interview. The Porto del Popolo swarmed 
with life. The merry-makers, who had spent the feast- 
day outside the walls, were now thronging in; a party 
of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a travelling- 
carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and 
was passing through the villanous ordeal of the papal 
custom-house. In the broad piazza, too, there was a 
motley crowd. 

But the stream of Miriam’s trouble kept its way 
through this flood of human life, and neither mingled 
with it nor was turned aside. With a sad kind of 
feminine ingenuity, she found a way to kneel before 
her tyrant, undetected, though in full sight of all 
the people, still beseeching him for freedom, and in 
vain. 


CHAPTER XII 


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN 

H ILDA, after giving the last touches to the picture 
of Beatrice Cenci, had flown down from her dove¬ 
cote, late in the afternoon, and gone to the Pincian Hill, 
in the hope of hearing a strain or two of exhilarating 
music. There, as it happened, she met the sculptor; 
for, to say the truth, Kenyon had well noted the fair 
artist’s ordinary way of life, and was accustomed to 
shape his own movements so as to bring him often 
within her sphere. 

The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Ro¬ 
man aristocracy. At the present day, however, like most 
other Roman possessions, it belongs less to the native 
inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great 
Britain, and beyond the sea, who have established a 
peaceful usurpation over whatever is enjoyable or mem¬ 
orable in the Eternal City. These foreign guests are 
indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer for 
Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have 
been, who levelled the summit of the mount so skilfully, 
and bounded it with the parapet of the city wall; who 
laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung 
them with the deepening shade of many kinds of tree; 
who scattered the flowers of all seasons, and of every 
clime, abundantly over those green, central lawns; who 
scooped out hollows, in fit places, and setting great 
basins of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains 
to fill them to the brim; who reared up the immemorial 
obelisk out of the soil that had long hidden it; who 
placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, and 
crowned them with busts of that multitude of worthies 
— statesmen, heroes, artists, men of letters and of song 

86 


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN 87 

— whom the whole world claims as its chief ornaments, 
though Italy produced them all. In a word, the Pincian 
garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger 
(since he fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels 
nothing of the cost) to the rule of an irresponsible dy¬ 
nasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have aimed at 
making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be. 

In this pleasant spot the red-trousered French soldiers 
are always to be seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, 
perhaps, with medals of Algiers or the Crimea on their 
breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of see¬ 
ing that children do not trample on the flower-beds, nor 
any youthful lover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms 
to stick in the beloved one’s hair. Here sits (drooping 
upon some marble bench, in the treacherous sunshine) 
the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought her, 
for cure, to a climate that instils poison into its very 
purest breath. Here, all day, come nursery-maids, 
burdened with rosy English babies, or guiding the foot¬ 
steps of little travellers from the far Western world. 
Here, in the sunny afternoons, roll and rumble all kinds 
of equipages, from the cardinal’s old-fashioned and gor¬ 
geous purple carriage to the gay barouche of modern 
date. Here horsemen gallop on thorough-bred steeds. 
Here, in short, all the transitory population of Rome, 
the world’s great watering-place, rides, drives, or prome¬ 
nades! Here are beautiful sunsets; and here, which¬ 
ever way you turn your eyes, are scenes as well worth 
gazing at, both in themselves and for their historic 
interest, as any that the sun ever rose and set upon. 
Here, too, on certain afternoons of the week, a French 
military band flings out rich music over the poor old 
city, floating her with strains as loud as those of her 
own echoless triumphs. 

Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the lat¬ 
ter, who loved best to be alone with his young country¬ 
woman) had wandered beyond the throng of prome- 
naders, whom they left in a dense cluster around the 
music. They strayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the 
Pincian Hill, and leaned over the parapet, looking down 


88 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


upon the Muro Torto, a massive fragment of the oldest 
Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down 
by its own weight, yet seems still the most indestruc¬ 
tible piece of work that men’s hands ever piled together. 
In the blue distance rose Soracte and other heights, 
which have gleamed afar, to our imaginations, but look 
scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed 
about so much, they have taken the aerial tints which 
belong only to a dream. These, nevertheless, are the 
solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, and its wide 
surrounding Campagna; no land of dreams, but the 
broadest page of history, crowded so full with memor¬ 
able events that one obliterates another; as if Time had 
crossed and recrossed his own records till they grew 
illegible. 

But, not to meddle with history — with which our nar¬ 
rative is no otherwise concerned, than that the very dust 
of Rome is historic, and inevitably settles on our page 
and mingles with our ink — we will return to our two 
friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath 
them lay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, cov¬ 
ered with trees, amid which appeared the white gleam of 
pillars and statues, and the flash of an upspringing foun¬ 
tain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the year, 
by the thicker growth of foliage. 

The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is 
less abrupt than the inhabitant of the cold North is 
accustomed to observe. Beginning earlier — even in 
February— Spring is not compelled to burst into Sum¬ 
mer with such headlong haste; there is time to dwell 
upon each opening beauty, and to enjoy the budding 
leaf, the tender green, the sweet youth and freshness of 
the year; it gives us its maiden charm, before settling 
into the married Summer, which, again, does not so 
soon sober itself into matronly Autumn. In our own 
country, the virgin Spring hastens to its bridal too 
abruptly. But, here, after a month or two of kindly 
growth, the leaves of the young trees, which cover that 
portion of the Borghese grounds nearest the city wall, 
were still in their tender half-development. 


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN 89 

In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex- 
trees, Hilda and Kenyon heard the faint sound of music, 
laughter, and mingling voices. It was probably the up¬ 
roar — spreading even so far as the walls of Rome, and 
growing faded and melancholy in its passage — of that 
wild sylvan merriment, which we have already attempted 
to describe. By and by it ceased; although the two 
listeners still tried to distinguish it between the bursts of 
nearer music from the military band. But there was 
no renewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards, they 
saw a solitary figure, advancing along one of the paths 
that lead from the obscurer part of the grounds, towards 
the gateway. 

“ Look ! is it not Donatello ? ” said Hilda. 

“ He it is, beyond a doubt,” replied the sculptor. 
“ But how gravely he walks, and with what long looks 
behind him ! He seems either very weary, or very sad. 
I should not hesitate to call it sadness, if Donatello were 
a creature capable of the sin and folly of low spirits. In 
all these hundred paces, while we have been watching 
him, he has not made one of those little caprioles in the 
air, which are a characteristic of his natural gait. I 
begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun.” 

“ Then,” said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, “ you 
have thought him — and do think him — one of that 
strange, wild, happy race of creatures, that used to laugh 
and sport in the woods, in the old, old times ? So do I, 
indeed ! But I never quite believed, till now, that fauns 
existed anywhere but in poetry.” 

The sculptor at first merely smiled. Then, as the 
idea took further possession of his mind, he laughed 
outright, and wished from the bottom of his heart (being 
in love with Hilda, though he had never told her so) 
that he could have rewarded or punished her for its 
pretty absurdity with a kiss. 

“ Oh, Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure 
imagination you hide under that little straw hat! ” cried 
he, at length. “A Faun! a Faun! Great Pan is not 
dead, then, after all! The whole tribe of mythical crea¬ 
tures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl’s 


9° 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


fancy, and find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt 
not, than their Arcadian haunts of yore. What bliss, if 
a man of marble, like myself, could stray thither too! ” 
“ Why do you laugh so ? ” asked Hilda, reddening; 
for she was a little disturbed at Kenyon’s ridicule, how¬ 
ever kindly expressed. “ What can I have said, that 
you think so very foolish ? ” 

“Well, not foolish, then,” rejoined the sculptor, “but 
wiser, it may be, than I can fathom. Really, however, 
the idea does strike one as delightfully fresh, when we 
consider Donatello’s position and external environment. 
Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old 
noble race in that part of Italy; and he has a moss- 
grown tower among the Apennines, where he and his 
forefathers have dwelt, under their own vines and fig- 
trees, from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passion 
for Miriam has introduced him familiarly to our little 
circle; and our republican and artistic simplicity of 
intercourse has included this young Italian, on the same 
terms as one of ourselves. But, if we paid due respect to 
rank and title, we should bend reverentially to Dona¬ 
tello, and salute him as his Excellency the Count di 
Monte Beni.” 

“ That is a droll idea — much droller than his being a 
Faun ! ” said Hilda, laughing in her turn. “ This does 
not quite satisfy me, however, especially as you your¬ 
self recognized and acknowledged his wonderful resem¬ 
blance to the statue.” 

“ Except as regards the pointed ears,” said Kenyon ; 
adding, aside — “ and one other little peculiarity, gener¬ 
ally observable in the statues of fauns.” 

“ As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni’s 
ears,” replied Hilda, smiling again at the dignity with 
which this title invested their playful friend, “ you know 
we could never see their shape on account of his cluster¬ 
ing curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as 
shyly as a wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of 
examining them. How do you explain that ? ” 

“ Oh, I certainly shall not contend against such a 
weight of evidence; the fact of his faunship being other- 


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN 91 

wise so probable,” answered the sculptor, still hardly 
retaining his gravity. “Faun or not, Donatello —or 
the Count di Monte Beni — is a singularly wild creature, 
and as I have remarked on other occasions, though very 
gentle, does not love to be touched. Speaking in no 
harsh sense, there is a great deal of animal nature in 
him, as if he had been born in the woods, and had run 
wild all his childhood, and were as yet but imperfectly 
domesticated. Life, even in our day, is very simple and 
unsophisticated in some of the shaggy nooks of the 
Apennines.” 

“It annoys me very much,” said Hilda, “this inclina¬ 
tion which most people have, to explain away the won¬ 
der and the mystery out of everything. Why could not 
you allow me — and yourself, too — the satisfaction of 
thinking him a Faun ? ” 

“ Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you 
any happier,” said the sculptor; “ and I shall do my best 
to become a convert. Donatello has asked me to spend 
the summer with him in his ancestral tower, where I pur¬ 
pose investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts, 
his forefathers ; and if their shadows beckon me into 
dreamland, I shall willingly follow. By the bye, speaking 
of Donatello, there is a point on which I should like to 
be enlightened.” 

“ Can I help you, then ? ” said Hilda, in answer to 
his look. 

“ Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam's 
affections ? ” suggested Kenyon. 

“ Miriam! she, so accomplished and gifted! ” exclaimed 
Hilda — “and he, a rude, uncultivated boy! No, no, 
no! ” 

“ It would seem impossible,” said the sculptor. “ But, 
on the other hand, a gifted woman flings away her affec¬ 
tions so unaccountably, sometimes! Miriam, of late, 
has been very morbid and miserable, as we both know. 
Young as she is, the morning light seems already to have 
faded out of her life ; and now comes Donatello, with 
natural sunshine enough for himself and her, and offers 
her the opportunity of making her heart and life all new 


92 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


and cheery again. People of high intellectual endow¬ 
ments do not require similar ones in those they love. 
They are just the persons to appreciate the wholesome 
gush of natural feeling, the honest affection, the simple 
joy, the fulness of contentment with what he loves, which 
Miriam sees in Donatello. True; she may call him a 
simpleton. It is a necessity of the case; for a man 
loses the capacity for this kind of affection, in proportion 
as he cultivates and refines himself.” 

“ Dear me ! ” said Hilda, drawing imperceptibly away 
from her companion. “ Is this the penalty of refinement ? 
Pardon me; I do not believe it. It is because you are 
a sculptor, that you think nothing can be finely wrought, 
except it be cold and hard, like the marble in which your 
ideas take shape. I am a painter, and know that the 
most delicate beauty may be softened and warmed 
throughout.” 

“ I said a foolish thing, indeed,” answered the sculp¬ 
tor. “ It surprises me, for I might have drawn a wiser 
knowledge out of my own experience. It is the surest 
test of genuine love, that it brings back our early sim¬ 
plicity to the worldliest of us.” 

Thus talking, they loitered slowly along beside the 
parapet which borders the level summit of the Pincian 
with its irregular sweep. At intervals they looked 
through the lattice-work of their thoughts at the varied 
prospects that lay before and beneath them. 

From the terrace where they now stood there is an 
abrupt descent towards the Piazza del Popolo; and look¬ 
ing down into its broad space they beheld the tall palatial 
edifices, the church-domes, and the ornamented gateway, 
which grew and were consolidated out of the thought of 
Michael Angelo. They saw, too, the red granite obe¬ 
lisk, oldest of things, even in Rome, which rises in the 
centre of the piazza, with a fourfold fountain at its base. 
All Roman works and ruins (whether of the empire, the 
far-off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a 
transient, visionary, and impalpable character when we 
think that this indestructible monument supplied one of 
the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore 





BRIDGE AND CASTLE OF SAINT ANGELO 



































A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN 93 

from Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on beholding 
the cloudy pillar and the fiery column, they whispered 
awe-stricken to one another, “ In its shape it is like that 
old obelisk which we and our fathers have so often seen 
on the borders of the Nile.” And now that very obelisk, 
with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is the first thing 
that the modern traveller sees after entering the Fla- 
minian Gate! 

Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed west¬ 
ward, and saw beyond the invisible Tiber the Castle of 
St. Angelo; that immense tomb of a pagan emperor, 
with the archangel at its summit. 

Still farther off appeared a mighty pile of buildings, 
surmounted by the vast dome, which all of us have 
shaped and swelled outward, like a huge bubble, to the 
utmost scope of our imaginations, long before we see it 
floating over the worship of the city. It may be most 
worthily seen from precisely the point where our two 
friends were now standing. At any nearer view the 
grandeur of St. Peter’s hides itself behind the immensity 
of its separate parts, so that we see only the front, only 
the sides, only the pillared length and loftiness of the 
portico, and not the mighty whole. But at this distance 
the entire outline of the world’s cathedral, as well as that 
of the palace of the world’s chief priest, is taken in at 
once. In such remoteness, moreover, the imagination is 
not debarred from lending its assistance, even while we 
have the reality before our eyes, and helping the weak¬ 
ness of human sense to do justice to so grand an object. 
It requires both faith and fancy to enable us to feel, what 
is nevertheless so true, that yonder, in front of the purple 
outline of hills, is the grandest edifice ever built by man, 
painted against God’s loveliest sky. 

After contemplating a little while a scene which their 
long residence in Rome had made familiar to them, Ken¬ 
yon and Hilda again let their glances fall into the piazza 
at their feet. They there beheld Miriam, who had just 
entered the Porta del Popolo, and was standing by the 
obelisk and fountain. With a gesture that impressed 
Kenyon as at once suppliant and imperious, she seemed 


94 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


to intimate to a figure which had attended her thus far, 
that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertina¬ 
cious model, however, remained immovable. 

And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, 
according to the interpretation he might put upon it, was 
either too trivial to be mentioned, or else so mysteriously 
significant that he found it difficult to believe his eyes. 
Miriam knelt down on the steps of the fountain; so far 
there could be no question of the fact. To other observ¬ 
ers, if any there were, she probably appeared to take this 
attitude merely for the convenience of dipping her fingers 
into the gush of water from the mouth of one of the stone 
lions. But as she clasped her hands together after thus 
bathing them, and glanced upward at the model, an idea 
took strong possession of Kenyon’s mind that Miriam 
was kneeling to this dark follower there in the world’s 
face ! 

“ Do you see it ? ” he said to Hilda. 

“ See what ? ” asked she, surprised at the emotion of 
his tone. ‘T see Miriam, who has just bathed her hands 
in that delightfully cool water. I often dip my fingers 
into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook that used 
to be one of my playmates in my New England village.” 

“ I fancied I saw something else,” said Kenyon; “but 
it was doubtless a mistake.” 

But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into 
the hidden significance of Miriam’s gesture, what a terri¬ 
ble thraldom did it suggest! Free as she seemed to be 
— beggar as he looked — the nameless vagrant must 
then be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the 
streets of Rome, fettered and shackled more cruelly 
than any captive queen of yore following in an em¬ 
peror’s triumph. And was it conceivable that she would 
have been thus enthralled unless some great error — 
how great Kenyon dared not think — or some fatal 
weakness had given this dark adversary a vantage- 
ground ? 

“ Hilda,” said he, abruptly, “ who and what is Miriam? 
Pardon me; but are you sure of her ? ” 

“Sure of her! ” repeated Hilda, with an angry blush, 


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN 95 

for her friend’s sake. “ I am sure that she is kind, good, 
and generous; a true and faithful friend, whom I love 
dearly, and who loves me as well! What more than this 
need I be sure of ? ” 

“ And your delicate instincts say all this in her favor ? 
—nothing against her?” continued the sculptor, without 
heeding the irritation of Hilda’s tone. “These are my 
own impressions, too. But she is such a mystery! We 
do not even know whether she is a countrywoman of 
ours, or an Englishwoman, or a German. There is 
Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins, one would say, and a 
right English accent on her tongue, but much that is 
not English breeding, nor American. Nowhere else but 
in Rome, and as an artist, could she hold a place in 
society without giving some clue to her past life.” 

“ I love her dearly,” said Hilda, still with displeasure 
in her tone, “ and trust her most entirely.” 

“ My heart trusts her at least, whatever my head may 
do,” replied Kenyon; “ and Rome is not like one of our 
New England villages, where we need the permission of 
each individual neighbor for every act that we do, every 
word that we utter, and every friend that we make or 
keep. In these particulars the papal despotism allows 
us freer breath than our native air; and if we like to take 
generous views of our associates, we can do so, to a rea¬ 
sonable extent, without ruining ourselves.” 

“ The music has ceased,” said Hilda; “ I am going 
now.” 

There are three streets that, beginning close beside 
each other, diverge from the Piazza del Popolo towards 
the heart of Rome : on the left, the Via del Babuino; on 
the right, the Via della Ripetta; and between these two 
that world-famous avenue, the Corso. It appeared that 
Miriam and her strange companion were passing up the 
first-mentioned of these three, and were soon hidden 
from Hilda and the sculptor. 

The two latter left the Pincian by the broad and stately 
walk that skirts along its brow. Beneath them, from 
the base of the abrupt descent, the city spread wide 
away in a close contiguity of red-earthen roofs, above 


9 6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


which rose eminent the domes of a hundred churches, 
besides here and there a tower, and the upper windows 
of some taller or higher-situated palace, looking down 
on a multitude of palatial abodes. At a distance, ascend¬ 
ing out of the central mass of edifices, they could see 
the top of the Antonine column, and near it the circular 
roof of the Pantheon, looking heavenward with its ever- 
open eye. 

Except these two objects, almost everything that they 
beheld was mediaeval, though built, indeed, of the massive 
old stones and indestructible bricks of imperial Rome ; 
for the ruin of the Coliseum, the Golden House, and in¬ 
numerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of 
Caesars and senators, had supplied the material for all 
those gigantic hovels, and their walls were cemented with 
mortar of inestimable cost, being made of precious an¬ 
tique statues, burnt long ago for this petty purpose. 

Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes, 
and seems like nothing but a heap of broken rubbish, 
thrown into the great chasm between our own days and 
the Empire, merely to fill it up; and, for the better part 
of two thousand years, its annals of obscure policies, and 
wars, and continually recurring misfortunes, seem also 
but broken rubbish, as compared with its classic history. 

If we consider the present city as at all connected with 
the famous one of old, it is only because we find it built 
over its grave. A depth of thirty feet of soil has cov¬ 
ered up the Rome of ancient days, so that it lies like the 
dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with no 
survivor mighty enough even to bury it, until the dust 
of all those years has gathered slowly over its recumbent 
form and made a casual sepulchre. 

We know not how to characterize, in any accordant 
and compatible terms, the Rome that lies before us; its 
sunless alleys, and streets of palaces; its churches, lined 
with the gorgeous marbles that were originally polished 
for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands of 
evil smells, mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, dif¬ 
fused from as many censers ; its little life, deriving feeble 
nutriment from what has long been dead. Everywhere, 


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN 


97 


some fragment of ruin suggesting the magnificence of 
a former epoch; everywhere, moreover, a Cross — and 
nastiness at the foot of it. As the sum of all, there are 
recollections that kindle the soul, and a gloom and 
languor that depress it beyond any depth of melan¬ 
cholic sentiment that can be elsewhere known. 

Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential 
word of Rome ? The city of all time, and of all the 
world ! The spot for which man’s great life and deeds 
have done so much, and for which decay has done what¬ 
ever glory and dominion could not do! At this moment, 
the evening sunshine is flinging its golden mantle over 
it, making all that we thought mean magnificent; the 
bells of all the churches suddenly ring out, as if it were 
a peal of triumph because Rome is still imperial. 

“ I sometimes fancy,” said Hilda, on whose susceptibil¬ 
ity the scene always made a strong impression, “ that 
Rome — mere Rome — will crowd everything else out 
of my heart.” 

“ Heaven forbid ! ” ejaculated the sculptor. 

They had now reached the grand stairs that ascended 
from the Piazza di Spagna to the hither brow of the 
Pincian Hill. Old Beppo, the millionnaire of his ragged 
fraternity — it is a wonder that no artist paints him as 
the cripple whom St. Peter heals at the Beautiful Gate 
of the Temple — was just mounting his donkey to de¬ 
part, laden with the rich spoil of the day’s beggary. 

Up the stairs, drawing his tattered cloak about his 
face, came the model, at whom Beppo looked askance, 
jealous of an encroacher on his rightful domain. The 
figure passed away, however, up the Via Sistina. In 
the piazza below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, 
stood Miriam, with her eyes bent on the ground, as if 
she were counting those little, square, uncomfortable 
paving-stones, that make it a penitential pilgrimage to 
walk in Rome. She kept this attitude for several min¬ 
utes, and when, at last, the importunities of a beggar dis¬ 
turbed her from it, she seemed bewildered, and pressed 
her hand upon her brow. 

“She has been in some sad dream or other, poor 


9 8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


thing ! ” said Kenyon, sympathizingly; “ and even now, 
she is imprisoned there in a kind of cage, the iron bars 
of which are made of her own thoughts.” 

“ I fear she is not well,” said Hilda. “I am going 
down the stairs, and will join Miriam.” 

“ Farewell, then,” said the sculptor. “ Dear Hilda, 
this is a perplexed and troubled world! It soothes me 
inexpressibly to think of you in your tower, with white 
doves and white thoughts for your companions, so high 
above us all, and with the Virgin for your household 
friend. You know not how far it throws its light, that 
lamp, which you keep burning at her shrine! I passed 
beneath the tower last night, and the ray cheered me — 
because you lighted it.” 

“ It has for me a religious significance,” replied Hilda, 
quietly, “ and yet I am no Catholic.” 

They parted, and Kenyon made haste along the Via 
Sistina, in the hope of overtaking the model, whose 
haunts and character he was anxious to investigate, for 
Miriam’s sake. He fancied that he saw him a long way 
in advance, but before he reached the Fountain of the 
Triton, the dusky figure had vanished. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A SCULPTOR S STUDIO 


BOUT this period, Miriam seems to have been 



-/Y goaded by a weary restlessness, that drove her 
abroad on any errand or none. She went one morning 
to visit Kenyon in his studio, whither he had invited her 
to see a new statue, on which he had staked many hopes, 
and which was now almost completed in the clay. Next 
to Hilda, the person for whom Miriam felt most affec¬ 
tion and confidence was Kenyon; and in all the diffi¬ 
culties that beset her life, it was her impulse to draw 
near Hilda for feminine sympathy, and the sculptor for 
brotherly counsel. 

Yet it was to little purpose that she approached the 
edge of the voiceless gulf between herself and them. 
Standing on the utmost verge of that dark chasm, she 
might stretch out her hand, and never clasp a hand of 
theirs; she might strive to call out, “ Help, friends! 
help ! ” but, as with dreamers when they shout, her voice 
would perish inaudibly in the remoteness that seemed 
such a little way. This perception of an infinite, shiver¬ 
ing solitude, amid which we cannot come close enough 
to human beings to be warmed by them, and where 
they turn to cold, chilly shapes of mist, is one of the 
most forlorn results of any accident, misfortune, crime, 
or peculiarity of character, that puts an individual ajar 
with the world. Very often, as in Miriam’s case, there 
is an insatiable instinct that demands friendship, love, 
and intimate communion, but is forced to pine in empty 
forms; a hunger of the heart, which finds only shadows 
to feed upon. 

Kenyon’s studio was in a cross-street, or, rather, an 
ugly and dirty little lane, between the Corso and the Via 


99 


IOO 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


della Ripetta; and though chill, narrow, gloomy, and 
bordered with tall and shabby structures, the lane was 
not a whit more disagreeable than nine tenths of the 
Roman streets. Over the door of one of the houses was 
a marble tablet, bearing an inscription, to the purport 
that the sculpture-rooms within had formerly been occu¬ 
pied by the illustrious artist Canova. In these precincts 
(which Canova’s genius was not quite of a character to 
render sacred, though it certainly made them interest¬ 
ing) the young American sculptor had now established 
himself. 

The studio of a sculptor is generally but a rough and 
dreary-looking place, with a good deal the aspect, indeed, 
of a stone-mason’s workshop. Bare floors of brick or 
plank, and plastered walls; an old chair or two, or per¬ 
haps only a block of marble (containing, however, the 
possibility of ideal grace within it) to sit down upon; 
some hastily scrawled sketches of nude figures on the 
whitewash of the wall. These last are probably the 
sculptor’s earliest glimpses of ideas that may hereafter 
be solidified into imperishable stone, or perhaps may 
remain as impalpable as a dream. Next there are a few 
very roughly modelled little figures in clay or plaster, 
exhibiting the second stage of the idea as it advances 
towards a marble immortality; and then is seen the ex¬ 
quisitely designed shape of clay, more interesting than 
even the final marble, as being the intimate production 
of the sculptor himself, moulded throughout with his 
loving hands, and nearest to his imagination and heart. 
In the plaster-cast, from this clay model, the beauty of 
the statue strangely disappears, to shine forth again with 
pure, white radiance, in the precious marble of Carrara. 
Works in all these stages of advancement, and some with 
the final touch upon them, might be found in Kenyon’s 
studio. 

Here might be witnessed the process of actually chisel¬ 
ling the marble, with which (as it is not quite satisfactory 
to think) a sculptor, in these days, has very little to do. 
In Italy, there is a class of men whose merely mechani¬ 
cal skill is perhaps more exquisite than was possessed 


A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO 


IOI 


by the ancient artificers, who wrought out the designs 
of Praxiteles; or, very possibly, by Praxiteles himself. 
Whatever of illusive representation can be effected in 
marble, they are capable of achieving, if the object be 
before their eyes. The sculptor has but to present these 
men with a plaster-cast of his design, and a sufficient 
block of marble, and tell them that the figure is imbedded 
in the stone, and must be freed from its encumbering 
superfluities; and, in due time, without the necessity of 
his touching the work with his own finger, he will see 
before him the statue that is to make him renowned. 
His creative power has wrought it with a word. 

In no other art, surely, does genius find such effective 
instruments, and so happily relieve itself of the drudgery 
of actual performance ; doing wonderfully nice things 
by the hands of other people, when it may be suspected 
they could not always be done by the sculptor’s own. 
And how much of the admiration which our artists get 
for their buttons and buttonholes, their shoeties, their 
neckcloths, — and these, at our present epoch of taste, 
make a large share of the renown, — would be abated, 
if we were generally aware that the sculptor can claim 
no credit for such pretty performances, as immortalized 
in marble ! They are not his work, but that of some 
nameless machine in human shape. 

Miriam stopped an instant in an antechamber, to look 
at a half-finished bust, the features of which seemed to 
be struggling out of the stone; and, as it were, scatter¬ 
ing and dissolving its hard substance by the glow of 
feeling and intelligence. As the skilful workman gave 
stroke after stroke of the chisel with apparent careless¬ 
ness, but sure effect, it was impossible not to think that 
the outer marble was merely an extraneous environ¬ 
ment ; the human countenance within its embrace must 
have existed there since the limestone ledges of Carrara 
were first made. Another bust was nearly completed, 
though still one of Kenyon’s most trustworthy assistants 
was at work, giving delicate touches, shaving off an 
impalpable something, and leaving little heaps of marble- 
dust to attest it. 


102 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ As these busts in the block of marble,” thought Mir¬ 
iam, “ so does our individual fate exist in the limestone 
of time. We fancy that we carve it out; but its ultimate 
shape is prior to all our action.” 

Kenyon was in the inner room, but, hearing a step in 
the antechamber, he threw a veil over what he was at 
work upon, and came out to receive his visitor. He was 
dressed in a gray blouse, with a little cap on the top of 
his head ; a costume which became him better than the 
formal garments which he wore, whenever he passed 
out of his own domains. The sculptor had a face which, 
when time had done a little more for it, would offer a 
worthy subject for as good an artist as himself ; features 
finely cut, as if already marble ; an ideal forehead, deeply 
set eyes, and a mouth much hidden in a light-brown 
beard, but apparently sensitive and delicate. 

“ I will not offer you my hand,” said he; “ it is grimy 
with Cleopatra’s clay.” 

“ No ; I will not touch clay ; it is earthly and human,” 
answered Miriam. “ I have come to try whether there 
is any calm and coolness among your marbles. My own 
art is too nervous, too passionate, too full of agitation, 
for me to work at it whole days together, without inter¬ 
vals of repose. So, what have you to show me ? ” 

“ Pray look at everything here,” said Kenyon. “ I 
love to have painters see my work. Their judgment is 
unprejudiced, and more valuable than that of the world 
generally, from the light which their own art throws on 
mine. More valuable, too, than that of my brother 
sculptors, who never judge me fairly — nor I them, 
perhaps.” 

To gratify him, Miriam looked round at the specimens 
in marble or plaster, of which there were several in the 
room, comprising originals or casts of most of the designs 
that Kenyon had thus far produced. He was still too 
young to have accumulated a large gallery of such 
things. What he had to show were chiefly the attempts 
and experiments, in various directions, of a beginner in 
art, acting as a stern tutor to himself, and profiting more 
by his failures than by any successes of which he was 


A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO 


103 


yet capable. Some of them, however, had great merit; 
and, in the pure, fine glow of the new marble, it may be, 
they dazzled the judgment into awarding them higher 
praise than they deserved. Miriam admired the statue 
of a beautiful youth, a pearl-fisher, who had got entangled 
in the weeds at the bottom of the sea, and lay dead 
among the pearl-oysters, the rich shells, and the sea¬ 
weeds, all of like value to him now. 

“ The poor young man has perished among the prizes 
that he sought,” remarked she. “ But what a strange 
efficacy there is in death! If we cannot all win pearls, 
it causes an empty shell to satisfy us just as well. I like 
this statue, though it is too cold and stern in its moral 
lesson ; and, physically, the form has not settled itself 
into sufficient repose.” 

In another style, there was a grand, calm head of 
Milton, not copied from any one bust or picture, yet 
more authentic than any of them, because all known 
representations of the poet had been profoundly studied, 
and solved in the artist’s mind. The bust over the tomb 
in Grey Friars Church, the original miniatures and pic¬ 
tures, wherever to be found, had mingled each its special 
truth in this one work; wherein, likewise, by long peru¬ 
sal and deep love of the Paradise Lost , the Comus , the 
Lycidas , and LI Allegro, the sculptor had succeeded even 
better than he knew, in spiritualizing his marble with 
the poet’s mighty genius. And this was a great thing 
to have achieved, such a length of time after the dry 
bones and dust of Milton were like those of any other 
dead man. 

There were also several portrait-busts, comprising 
those of two or three of the illustrious men of our own 
country, whom Kenyon, before he left America, had 
asked permission to model. He had done so, because 
he sincerely believed that, whether he wrought the busts 
in marble or bronze, the one would corrode and the other 
crumble, in the long lapse of time, beneath these great 
men’s immortality. Possibly, however, the young artist 
may have under-estimated the durability of his material. 
Other faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity 


104 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


of their remembrance, after death, can be argued from 
their little value in life) should have been represented in 
snow rather than marble. Posterity will be puzzled what 
to do with busts like these, the concretions and petrifac¬ 
tions of a vain self-estimate ; but will find, no doubt, that 
they serve to build into stone walls, or burn into quick¬ 
lime, as well as if the marble had never been blocked 
into the guise of human heads. 

But it is an awful thing, indeed, this endless endur¬ 
ance, this almost indestructibility, of a marble bust! 
Whether in our own case, or that of other men, it bids 
us sadly measure the little, little time, during which our 
lineaments are likely to be of interest to any human be¬ 
ing. It is especially singular that Americans should care 
about perpetuating themselves in this mode. The brief 
duration of our families, as a hereditary household, ren¬ 
ders it next to a certainty that the great-grandchildren 
will not know their father’s grandfather, and that half a 
century hence, at farthest, the hammer of the auctioneer 
will thump its knock-down blow against his blockhead, 
sold at so much for the pound of stone! And it ought 
to make us shiver, the idea of leaving our features to be 
a dusty-white ghost among strangers of another genera¬ 
tion, who will take our nose between their thumb and 
fingers (as we have seen men do by Caesar’s), and in¬ 
fallibly break it off, if they can do so without detection ! 

“Yes,” said Miriam, who had been revolving some 
such thoughts as the above, “ it is a good state of mind 
for mortal man, when he is content to leave no more defi¬ 
nite memorial than the grass, which will sprout kindly 
and speedily over his grave, if we do not make the spot 
barren with marble. Methinks, too, it will be a fresher 
and better world, when it flings off this great burden of 
stony memories, which the ages have deemed it a piety 
to heap upon its back.” 

“What you say,” remarked Kenyon, “goes against 
my whole art. Sculpture, and the delight which men 
naturally take in it, appear to me a proof that it is good 
to work with all time before our view.” 

“Well, well,” answered Miriam, “ I must not quarrel 


A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO 


105 


with you for flinging your heavy stones at poor Posterity ; 
and, to say the truth, I think you are as likely to hit the 
mark as anybody. These busts, now, much as I seem to 
scorn them, make me feel as if you were a magician. 
You turn feverish men into cool, quiet marble. What 
a blessed change for them! Would you could do as 
much for me ! ” 

“ Oh, gladly ! ” cried Kenyon, who had long wished to 
model that beautiful and most expressive face. “ When 
will you begin to sit ? ” 

“ Poh ! that was not what I meant,” said Miriam. 
“Come, show me something else.” 

“ Do you recognize this ? ” asked the sculptor. 

He took out of his desk a little old-fashioned ivory 
coffer, yellow with age ; it was richly carved with antique 
figures and foliage; and had Kenyon thought fit to say 
that Benvenuto Cellini wrought this precious box, the 
skill and elaborate fancy of the work would by no means 
have discredited his word, nor the old artist’s fame. At 
least, it was evidently a production of Benvenuto’s school 
and century, and might once have been the jewel-case of 
some grand lady at the court of the De’ Medici. 

Lifting the lid, however, no blaze of diamonds was 
disclosed, but only, lapped in fleecy cotton, a small, beau¬ 
tifully shaped hand, most delicately sculptured in marble. 
Such loving care and nicest art had been lavished here, 
that the palm really seemed to have a tenderness in its 
very substance. Touching those lovely fingers—had 
the jealous sculptor allowed you to touch — you could 
hardly believe that a virgin warmth would not steal from 
them into your heart. 

“ Ah, this is very beautiful! ” exclaimed Miriam, with 
a genial smile. “ It is as good in its way as Loulie’s 
hand with its baby-dimples, which Powers showed me at 
Florence, evidently valuing it as much as if he had 
wrought it out of a piece of his great heart. As good 
as Harriet Hosmer’s clasped hands of Browning and his 
wife, symbolizing the individuality and heroic union of 
two high, poetic lives! Nay, I do not question that it 
is better than either of those, because you must have 


106 THE MARBLE FAUN 

wrought it passionately, in spite of its maiden palm and 
dainty finger-tips.” 

“ Then you do recognize it ? ” asked Kenyon. 

“ There is but one right hand on earth that could have 
supplied the model,” answered Miriam; “ so small and 
slender, so perfectly symmetrical, and yet with a char¬ 
acter of delicate energy. I have watched it a hundred 
times at its work; but I did not dream that you had won 
Hilda so far ! How have you persuaded that shy maiden 
to let you take her hand in marble ? ” 

“Never! She never knew it!” hastily replied Ken¬ 
yon, anxious to vindicate his mistress’s maidenly reserve. 
“ I stole it from her. The hand is a reminiscence. 
After gazing at it so often, and even holding it once for 
an instant when Hilda was not thinking of me, I should 
be a bungler indeed, if I could not now reproduce it to 
something like the life.” 

“ May you win the original one day! ” said Miriam, 
kindly. 

“ I have little ground to hope it,’’answered the sculp¬ 
tor, despondingly; “ Hilda does not dwell in our mortal 
atmosphere; and gentle and soft as she appears, it 
will be as difficult to win her heart as to entice down 
a white bird from its sunny freedom in the sky. It is 
strange, with all her delicacy and fragility, the impres¬ 
sion she makes of being utterly sufficient to herself. No; 
I shall never win her. She is abundantly capable of sym¬ 
pathy, and delights to receive it, but she has no need of 
love.” 

“ I partly agree with you,” said Miriam. “ It is a 
mistaken idea, which men generally entertain, that 
nature has made women especially prone to throw their 
whole being into what is technically called love. We 
have, to say the least, no more necessity for it than 
yourselves; only we have nothing else to do with our 
hearts. When women have other objects in life, they 
are not apt to fall in love. I can think of many women 
distinguished in art, literature, and science, — and mul¬ 
titudes whose hearts and minds find good employment 
in less ostentatious ways, — who lead high, lonely lives, 


A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO 


107 

and are conscious of no sacrifice so far as your sex is 
concerned.” 

“ And Hilda will be one of these ! ” said Kenyon, 
sadly ; “ the thought makes me shiver for myself, and 
— and for her, too.” 

“ Well,” said Miriam, smiling, “ perhaps she may 
sprain the delicate wrist which you have sculptured to 
such perfection. In that case you may hope. These 
old masters to whom she has vowed herself, and whom 
her slender hand and woman’s heart serve so faithfully, 
are your only rivals.” 

The sculptor sighed as he put away the treasure of 
Hilda’s marble hand into the ivory coffer, and thought 
how slight was the possibility that he should ever feel 
responsive to his own the tender clasp of the original. 
He dared not even kiss the image that he himself had 
made; it had assumed its share of Hilda’s remote and 
shy divinity. 

“And now,” said Miriam, “show me the new statue 
which you asked me hither to see.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


CLEOPATRA 

“ T% /TY new statue! ” said Kenyon, who had positively 

lVX forgotten it in the thought of Hilda ; “ here it 
is under this veil.” 

“Not a nude figure, I hope,” observed Miriam. 
“ Every young sculptor seems to think that he must 
give the world some specimen of indecorous woman¬ 
hood, and call it Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name 
that may apologize for a lack of decent clothing. I am 
weary, even more than I am ashamed, of seeing such 
things. Nowadays people are as good as born in their 
clothes, and there is practically not a nude human being 
in existence. An artist, therefore, as you must can¬ 
didly confess, cannot sculpture nudity with a pure heart, 
if only because he is compelled to steal guilty glimpses 
at hired models. The marble inevitably loses its chas¬ 
tity under such circumstances. An old Greek sculptor, 
no doubt, found his models in the open sunshine, and 
among pure and princely maidens, and thus the nude 
statues of antiquity are as modest as violets, and suf¬ 
ficiently draped in their own beauty. But as for Mr. 
Gibson’s colored Venuses, (stained, I believe, with 
tobacco-juice,) and all other nudities of to-day, I really 
do not understand what they have to say to this gen¬ 
eration, and would be glad to see as many heaps of 
quicklime in their stead.” 

“You are severe upon the professors of my art,” 
said Kenyon, half smiling, half seriously; “ not that 
you are wholly wrong, either. We are bound to accept 
drapery of some kind, and make the best of it. But 
what are we to do ? Must we adopt the costume of 
to-day, and carve, for example, a Venus in a hoop- 
petticoat ? ” 

108 


CLEOPATRA 


109 

“That would be a boulder, indeed ! ” rejoined Miriam, 
laughing. “ But the difficulty goes to confirm me in 
my belief that, except for portrait-busts, sculpture has 
no longer a right to claim any place among living arts. 
It has wrought itself out, and come fairly to an end. 
There is never a new group nowadays ; never even so 
much as a new attitude. Greenough (I take my 
examples among men of merit) imagined nothing new; 
nor Crawford either, except in the tailoring line. There 
are not, as you will own, more than half a dozen posi¬ 
tively original statues or groups in the world, and these 
few are of immemorial • antiquity. A person familiar 
with the Vatican, the Uffizzi Gallery, the Naples Gal¬ 
lery, and the Louvre, will at once refer any modern 
production to its antique prototype; which, moreover, 
had begun to get out of fashion, even in old Roman 
days.” 

“ Pray stop, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, “ or I shall fling 
away the chisel forever ! ” 

“ Fairly own to me, then, my friend,” rejoined 
Miriam, whose disturbed mind found a certain relief in 
this declamation, “ that you sculptors are, of necessity, 
the greatest plagiarists in the world.” 

“ I do not own it,” said Kenyon, “ yet cannot utterly 
contradict you, as regards the actual state of the art. 
But as long as the Carrara quarries still yield pure 
blocks, and while my own country has marble moun¬ 
tains, probably as fine in quality, I shall steadfastly 
believe that future sculptors will revive this noblest of 
the beautiful arts, and people the world with new shapes 
of delicate grace and massive grandeur. Perhaps,” he 
added, smiling, “ mankind will consent to wear a more 
manageable costume; or, at worst, we sculptors shall 
get the skill to make broadcloth transparent, and ren¬ 
der a majestic human character visible through the coats 
and trousers of the present day.” 

“Be it so! ” said Miriam; “you are past my counsel. 
Show me the veiled figure, which, I am afraid, I have 
criticised beforehand. To make amends, I am in the 
mood to praise it now.” 


I IO 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


But, as Kenyon was about to take the cloth off the 
clay model, she laid her hand on his arm. 

“Tell me first what is the subject,” said she, “for I 
have sometimes incurred great displeasure from members 
of your brotherhood by being too obtuse to puzzle out 
the purport of their productions. It is so difficult, you 
know, to compress and define a character or story, and 
make it patent at a glance, within the narrow scope 
attainable by sculpture! Indeed, I fancy it is still the 
ordinary habit with sculptors, first to finish their group 
of statuary — in such development as the particular 
block of marble will allow—and then to choose the 
subject; as John of Bologna did with his ‘ Rape of the 
Sabines.’ Have you followed that good example ? ” 

“ No; my statue is intended for Cleopatra,” replied 
Kenyon, a little disturbed by Miriam’s raillery. “The 
special epoch of her history you must make out for 
yourself.” 

He drew away the cloth that had served to keep the 
moisture of the clay model from being exhaled. The 
sitting figure of a woman was seen. She was draped 
from head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously 
studied from that of ancient Egypt, as revealed by the 
strange sculpture of that country, its coins, drawings, 
painted mummy-cases, and whatever other tokens have 
been dug out of its pyramids, graves, and catacombs. 
Even the stiff Egyptian head-dress was adhered to, but 
had been softened into a rich feminine adornment, with¬ 
out losing a particle of its truth. Difficulties that might 
well have seemed insurmountable, had been courageously 
encountered and made flexible to purposes of grace and 
dignity; so that Cleopatra sat attired in a garb proper 
to her historic and queenly state, as a daughter of the 
Ptolemies, and yet such as the beautiful woman would 
have put on as best adapted to heighten the magnifi¬ 
cence of her charms, and kindle a tropic fire in the cold 
eyes of Octavius. 

A marvellous repose — that rare merit in statuary, 
except it be the lumpish repose native to the block of 
stone — was diffused throughout the figure. The spec- 


CLEOPATRA 


111 


tator felt that Cleopatra had sunk down out of the fever 
and turmoil of her life, and for one instant — as it were, 
between two pulse-throbs — had relinquished all activity, 
and was resting throughout every vein and muscle. It 
was the repose of despair, indeed ; for Octavius had seen 
her, and remained insensible to her enchantments. But 
still there was a great smouldering furnace deep down 
in the woman’s heart. The repose, no doubt, was as 
complete as if she were never to stir hand or foot again ; 
and yet, such was the creature’s latent energy and 
fierceness, she might spring upon you like a tigress, and 
stop the very breath that you were now drawing mid¬ 
way in your throat. 

The face was a miraculous success. The sculptor 
had not shunned to give the full, Nubian lips, and other 
characteristics of the Egyptian physiognomy. His 
courage and integrity had been abundantly rewarded; 
for Cleopatra’s beauty shone out richer, warmer, more 
triumphantly beyond comparison, than if, shrinking 
timidly from the truth, he had chosen the tame Grecian 
type. The expression was of profound, gloomy, heavily 
revolving thought; a glance into her past life and 
present emergencies, while her spirit gathered itself up 
for some new struggle, or was getting sternly reconciled 
to impending doom. In one view, there was a certain 
softness and tenderness—how breathed into the statue, 
among so many strong and passionate elements, it is 
impossible to say. Catching another glimpse, you be¬ 
held her as implacable as a stone and cruel as fire. 

In a word, all Cleopatra — fierce, voluptuous, passion¬ 
ate, tender, wicked, terrible, and full of poisonous and 
rapturous enchantment — was kneaded into what, only 
a week or two before, had been a lump of wet clay from 
the Tiber. Soon, apotheosized in an indestructible mate¬ 
rial, she would be one of the images that men keep for¬ 
ever, finding a heat in them which does not cool down, 
throughout the centuries. 

“ What a woman is this ! ” exclaimed Miriam, after a 
long pause. “ Tell me, did she ever try, even while you 
were creating her, to overcome you with her fury or her 


I 12 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


love ? Were you not afraid to touch her, as she grew 
more and more towards hot life beneath your hand ? 
My dear friend, it is a great work! How have you 
learned to do it?” 

“ It is the concretion of a good deal of thought, emo¬ 
tion, and toil of brain and hand,” said Kenyon, not with¬ 
out a perception that his work was good ; “ but I know 
not how it came about at last. I kindled a great fire 
within my mind, and threw in the material, — as Aaron 
threw the gold of the Israelites into the furnace, — and 
in the midmost heat uprose Cleopatra, as you see her.” 

“What I most marvel at,” said Miriam, “is the wom¬ 
anhood that you have so thoroughly mixed up with all 
those seemingly discordant elements. Where did you 
get that secret? You never found it in your gentle 
Hilda: yet I recognize its truth.” 

“ No, surely, it was not in Hilda,” said Kenyon. 
“ Her womanhood is of the ethereal type, and incom¬ 
patible with any shadow of darkness or evil.” 

“ You are right,” rejoined Miriam; “ there are women 
of that ethereal type as you term it, and Hilda is one of 
them. She would die of her first wrong-doing — sup¬ 
posing for a moment that she could be capable of doing 
wrong. Of sorrow, slender as she seems, Hilda might 
bear a great burden ; of sin, not a feather’s weight. 
Methinks now, were it my doom, I could bear either, or 
both at once; but my conscience is still as white as 
Hilda’s. Do you question it ? ” 

“ Heaven forbid, Miriam ! ” exclaimed the sculptor. 

He was startled at the strange turn which she had so 
suddenly given to the conversation. Her voice, too — 
so much emotion was stifled rather than expressed in it 
— sounded unnatural. 

“Oh, my friend,” cried she, with sudden passion, 
“ will you be my friend indeed ? I am lonely, lonely, 
lonely ! There is a secret in my heart that burns me — 
that tortures me! Sometimes I fear to go mad of it; 
sometimes I hope to die of it; but neither of the two 
happens. Ah, if I could but whisper it to only one 
human soul! And you — you see far into womanhood; 


CLEOPATRA 


iij 

you receive it widely into your large view ! Perhaps — 
perhaps, but Heaven only knows, you might understand 
me ! Oh, let me speak ! ” 

“ Miriam, dear friend,” replied the sculptor, “if I can 
help you, speak freely, as to a brother.” 

“ Help me ? No ! ” said Miriam. 

Kenyon’s response had been perfectly frank and kind ; 
and yet the subtlety of Miriam’s emotion detected a cer¬ 
tain reserve and alarm in his warmly expressed readiness 
to hear her story. In his secret soul, to say the truth, 
the sculptor doubted whether it were well for this poor, 
suffering girl to speak what she so yearned to say, or 
for him to listen. If there were any active duty of 
friendship to be performed, then, indeed, he would joy¬ 
fully have come forward to do his best. But if it were 
only a pent-up heart that sought an outlet? in that case 
it was by no means so certain that a confession would 
do good. The more her secret struggled and fought 
to be told, the more certain would it be to change all 
former relations that had subsisted between herself and 
the friend to whom she might reveal it. Unless he 
could give her all the sympathy, and just the kind of 
sympathy that the occasion required, Miriam would hate 
him by and by, and herself still more, if he let her speak. 

This was what Kenyon said to himself; but his reluc¬ 
tance, after all, and whether he were conscious of it or 
no, resulted from a suspicion that had crept into his 
heart and lay there in a dark corner. Obscure as it was, 
when Miriam looked into his eyes, she detected it at once. 

“ Ah, I shall hate you! ” cried she, echoing the thought 
which he had not spoken ; she was half choked with the 
gush of passion that was thus turned back upon her. 
“ You are as cold and pitiless as your own marble.” 

“ No ; but full of sympathy, God knows ! ” replied he. 

In truth his suspicions, however warranted by the 
mystery in which Miriam was enveloped, had vanished 
in the earnestness of his kindly and sorrowful emotion. 
He was now ready to receive her trust. 

“ Keep your sympathy, then, for sorrows that admit 
of such solace,” said she, making a strong effort to com- 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


114 

pose herself. “ As for my griefs, I know how to manage 
them. It was all a mistake : you can do nothing for me, 
unless you petrify me into a marble companion for your 
Cleopatra there; and I am not of her sisterhood, I do 
assure you. Forget this foolish scene, my friend, and 
never let me see a reference to it in your eyes when 
they meet mine hereafter.” 

“ Since you desire it, all shall be forgotten,” answered 
the sculptor, pressing her hand as she departed; “or, if 
ever I can serve you, let my readiness to do so be remem¬ 
bered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in the same 
clear, friendly light as heretofore.” 

“You are less sincere than I thought you,” said 
Miriam, “if you try to make me think that there will 
be no change.” 

As he attended her through the antechamber, she 
pointed to the statue of the pearl-diver. 

“My secret is not a pearl,” said she; “yet a man 
might drown himself in plunging after it.” 

After Kenyon had closed the door, she went wearily 
down the staircase, but paused midway, as if debating 
with herself whether to return. 

“The mischief was done,” thought she; “and I might 
as well have had the solace that ought to come with it. 
I have lost — by staggering a little way beyond the mark, 
in the blindness of my distress — I have lost, as we 
shall hereafter find, the genuine friendship of this clear- 
minded, honorable, true-hearted young man, and all for 
nothing. What if I should go back this moment and 
compel him to listen ? ” 

She ascended two or three of the stairs, but again 
paused, murmured to herself, and shook her head. 

“No, no, no,” she thought; “and I wonder how I 
ever came to dream of it. Unless I had his heart for 
my own, — and that is Hilda’s, nor would I steal it from 
her, — it should never be the treasure-place of my secret. 
It is no precious pearl, as I just now told him; but my 
dark-red carbuncle — red as blood — is too rich a gem 
to put into a stranger’s casket.” 

She went down the stairs and found her Shadow wait¬ 
ing for her in the street. 


CHAPTER XV 


AN ^ESTHETIC COMPANY 

O N the evening after Miriam’s visit to Kenyon’s studio, 
there was an assemblage composed almost entirely 
of Anglo-Saxons, and chiefly of American artists, with a 
sprinkling of their English brethren; and some few of 
the tourists who still lingered in Rome, now that Holy 
Week was past. Miriam, Hilda, and the sculptor were 
all three present, and, with them, Donatello, whose life 
was so far turned from its natural bent, that, like a pet 
spaniel, he followed his beloved mistress wherever he 
could gain admittance. 

The place of meeting was in the palatial, but some¬ 
what faded and gloomy apartment of an eminent member 
of the aesthetic body. It was no more formal an occasion 
than one of those weekly receptions, common among the 
foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people — 
or disagreeable ones, as the case may be — encounter 
one another with little ceremony. 

If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to 
please who cannot find fit companionship among a crowd 
of persons, whose ideas and pursuits all tend towards the 
general purpose of enlarging the world’s stock of beauti¬ 
ful productions. 

One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorite 
residence of artists — their ideal home which they sigh 
for in advance, and are so loth to migrate from, after 
once breathing its enchanted air — is, doubtless, that they 
there find themselves in force, and are numerous enough 
to create a congenial atmosphere. In every other clime 
they are isolated strangers; in this land of art, they are 
free citizens. 

Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to 
"5 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


ii 6 

be any large stock of mutual affection among the brethren 
of the chisel and the pencil. On the contrary, it will 
impress the shrewd observer that the jealousies and petty 
animosities, which the poets of our day have flung aside, 
still irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class 
of imaginative men. It is not difficult to suggest reasons 
why this should be the fact. The public, in whose good 
graces lie the sculptor’s or the painter’s prospects of suc¬ 
cess, is infinitely smaller than the public to which literary 
men make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited 
body of wealthy patrons; and these, as the artist well 
knows, are but blind judges in matters that require the 
utmost delicacy of perception. Thus, success in art is 
apt to become partly an affair of intrigue; and it is 
almost inevitable that even a gifted artist should look 
askance at his gifted brother’s fame, and be chary of the 
good word that might help him to sell still another statue 
or picture. You seldom hear a painter heap generous 
praise on anything in his special line of art; a sculptor 
never has a favorable eye for any marble but his own. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges, 
artists are conscious of a social warmth from each other’s 
presence and contiguity. They shiver at the remem¬ 
brance of their lonely studios in the unsympathizing 
cities of their native land. For the sake of such brother¬ 
hood as they can find, more than for any good that they 
get from galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, 
while their originality dies out of them, or is polished 
away as a barbarism. 

The company this evening included several men and 
women whom the world has heard of, and many others, 
beyond all question, whom it ought to know. It would 
be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages, 
name by name, and — had we confidence enough in our 
own taste — to crown each well-deserving brow according 
to its deserts. The opportunity is tempting, but not easily 
manageable, and far too perilous, both in respect to those 
individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far 
greater number that must needs be left in the shade. 
Ink, moreover, is apt to have a corrosive quality, and 


AN ESTHETIC COMPANY 


uy 

might chance to raise a blister, instead of any more agree¬ 
able titillation, on skins so sensitive as those of artists. 
We must therefore forego the delight of illuminating this 
chapter with personal allusions to men whose renown 
glows richly on canvas, or gleams in the white moonlight 
of marble. 

Otherwise we might point to an artist who has studied 
nature with such tender love that she takes him to her 
intimacy, enabling him to reproduce her in landscapes 
that seem the reality of a better earth, and yet are but 
the truth of the very scenes around us, observed by the 
painter’s insight and interpreted for us by his skill. By 
his magic, the moon throws her light far out of the pic¬ 
ture, and the crimson of the summer night absolutely 
glimmers on the beholder’s face. Or we might indicate 
a poet-painter, whose song has the vividness of picture, 
and whose canvas is peopled with angels, fairies, and 
water-sprites, done to the ethereal life, because he saw 
them face to face in his poetic mood. Or we might bow 
before an artist, who has wrought too sincerely, too reli¬ 
giously, with too earnest a feeling, and too delicate a touch, 
for the world at once to recognize how much toil and 
thought are compressed into the stately brow of Prospero, 
and Miranda’s maiden loveliness; or from what a depth 
within this painter’s heart the Angel is leading forth St. 
Peter. 

Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score of 
little epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly 
meant, but none of them quite hitting the mark, and often 
striking where they were not aimed. It may be allow¬ 
able to say, however, that American art is much better 
represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculp¬ 
turesque department. Yet the men of marble appear to 
have more weight with the public than the men of can¬ 
vas ; perhaps on account of the greater density and solid 
substance of the material in which they work, and the 
sort of physical advantage which their labors thus acquire 
over the illusive unreality of color. To be a sculptor, 
seems a distinction in itself; whereas, a painter is noth¬ 
ing, unless individually eminent. 


118 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


One sculptor there was, an Englishman, endowed with 
a beautiful fancy, and possessing at his fingers’ ends the 
capability of doing beautiful things. He was a quiet, 
simple, elderly personage, with eyes brown and bright, 
under a slightly impending brow, and a Grecian profile, 
such as he might have cut with his own chisel. He had 
spent his life, for forty years, in making Venuses, Cupids, 
Bacchuses, and a vast deal of other marble progeny of 
dream-work, or rather frost-work: it was all a vapory 
exhalation out of the Grecian mythology, crystallizing on 
the dull window-panes of to-day. Gifted with a more 
delicate power than any other man alive, he had foregone 
to be a Christian reality, and perverted himself into a 
Pagan idealist, whose business or efficacy, in our present 
world, it would be exceedingly difficult to define. And, 
loving and reverencing the pure material in which he 
wrought, as surely this admirable sculptor did, he had 
nevertheless robbed the marble of its chastity, by giving 
it an artificial warmth of hue. Thus it became a sin and 
shame to look at his nude goddesses. They had revealed 
themselves to his imagination, no doubt, with all their 
deity about them; but, bedaubed with buff-color, they 
stood forth to the eyes of the profane in the guise of 
naked women. But, whatever criticism may be ven¬ 
tured on his style, it was good to meet a man so modest, 
and yet imbued with such thorough and simple conviction 
of his own right principles and practice, and so quietly 
satisfied that his kind of antique achievement was all 
that sculpture could effect for modern life. 

This eminent person’s weight and authority among 
his artistic brethren were very evident; for beginning 
unobtrusively to utter himself on a topic of art, he was 
soon the centre of a little crowd of younger sculptors. 
They drank in his wisdom, as if it would serve all the 
purposes of original inspiration ; he, meanwhile, dis¬ 
coursing with gentle calmness, as if there could possi¬ 
bly be no other side, and often ratifying, as it were, his 
own conclusions by a mildly emphatic — “ Yes.” 

The veteran sculptor’s unsought audience was com¬ 
posed mostly of our own countrymen. It is fair to say, 


AN AESTHETIC COMPANY 


ll 9 

that they were a body of very dexterous and capable 
artists, each of whom had probably given the delighted 
public a nude statue, or had won credit for even higher 
skill by the nice carving of buttonholes, shoeties, coat- 
seams, shirt-bosoms, and other such graceful peculiarities 
of modern costume. Smart, practical men they doubt¬ 
less were, and some of them far more than this, but, 
still, not precisely what an uninitiated person looks for 
in a sculptor. A sculptor, indeed, to meet the demands 
which our preconceptions make upon him, should be 
even more indispensably a poet than those who deal in 
measured verse and rhyme. His material, or instru¬ 
ment, which serves him in the stead of shifting and tran¬ 
sitory language, is a pure, white, undecaying substance. 
It insures immortality to whatever is wrought in it, and 
therefore makes It a religious obligation to commit no 
idea to its mighty guardianship, save such as may repay 
the marble for its faithful care, its incorruptible fidelity, 
by warming it with an ethereal life. Under this aspect 
marble assumes a sacred character; and no man should 
dare to touch it unless he feels within himself a certain 
consecration and a priesthood, the only evidence of 
which, for the public eye, will be the high treatment of 
heroic subjects, or the delicate evolution of spiritual, 
through material beauty. 

No ideas such as the foregoing — no misgivings sug¬ 
gested by them — probably troubled the self-compla¬ 
cency of most of these clever sculptors. Marble, in their 
view, had no such sanctity as we impute to it. It was 
merely a sort of white limestone from Carrara, cut into 
convenient blocks, and worth, in that state, about two or 
three dollars per pound ; and it was susceptible of being 
wrought into certain shapes (by their own mechanical 
ingenuity, or that of artisans in their employment) 
which would enable them to sell it again at a much 
higher figure. Such men, on the strength of some small 
knack in handling clay, which might have been fitly em¬ 
ployed in making waxwork, are bold to call themselves 
sculptors. How terrible should be the thought, that the 
nude woman whom the modern artist patches together, 


120 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


bit by bit, from a dozen heterogeneous models, meaning 
nothing by her, shall last as long as the Venus of the 
Capitol! — that his group of — no matter what, since it 
has no moral or intellectual existence — will not physi¬ 
cally crumble any sooner than the immortal agony of 
the Laocoon! 

Yet we love the artists, in every kind; even these, 
whose merits we are not quite able to appreciate. Sculp¬ 
tors, painters, crayon sketchers, or whatever branch of 
aesthetics they adopted, were certainly pleasanter people, 
as we saw them that evening, than the average whom we 
meet in ordinary society. They were not wholly con¬ 
fined within the sordid compass of practical life; they 
had a pursuit which, if followed faithfully out, would lead 
them to the beautiful, and always had a tendency thith¬ 
erward, even if they lingered to gather up golden dross 
by the wayside. Their actual business (though they 
talked about it very much as other men talk of cotton, 
politics, flour barrels, and sugar) necessarily illuminated 
their conversation with something akin to the ideal. So, 
when the guests collected themselves in little groups, 
here and there, in the wide saloon, a cheerful and airy 
gossip began to be heard. The atmosphere ceased to 
be precisely that of common life; a faint, mellow tinge, 
such as we see in pictures, mingled itself with the lamp¬ 
light.. 

This good effect was assisted by many curious little 
treasures of art, which the host had taken care to strew 
upon his tables. They were principally such bits of 
antiquity as the soil of Rome and its neighborhood are 
still rich in; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, mediae¬ 
val carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained 
at little cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable 
value in the museum of a virtuoso. 

As interesting as any of these relics was a large port¬ 
folio of old drawings, some of which, in the opinion of 
their possessor, bore evidence on their faces of the touch 
of master-hands. Very ragged and ill-conditioned they 
mostly were, yellow with time, and tattered with rough 
usage; and, in their best estate, the designs had been 


AN ESTHETIC COMPANY 


I 21 


scratched rudely with pen and ink, on coarse paper, or, 
if drawn with charcoal or a pencil, were now half rubbed 
out. You would not anywhere see rougher and homelier 
things than these. But this hasty rudeness made the 
sketches only the more valuable; because the artist 
seemed to have bestirred himself at the pinch of the 
moment, snatching up whatever material was nearest, 
so as to seize the first glimpse of an idea that might 
vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Thus, by the spell 
of a creased, soiled, and discolored scrap of paper, you 
were enabled to steal close to an old master, and watch 
him in the very effervescence of his genius. 

According to the judgment of several connoisseurs 
Raphael’s own hand had communicated its magnetism 
to one of these sketches; and, if genuine, it was evi¬ 
dently his first conception of a favorite Madonna, now 
hanging in the private apartment of the Grand Duke, 
at Florence. Another drawing was attributed to Leo¬ 
nardo da Vinci, and appeared to be a somewhat varied 
design for his picture of Modesty and Vanity, in the 
Sciarra Palace. There were at least half a dozen 
others, to which the owner assigned as high an origin. 
It was delightful to believe in their authenticity, at all 
events ; for these things make the spectator more vividly 
sensible of a great painter’s power, than the final glow 
and perfected art of the most consummate picture that 
may have been elaborated from them. There is an 
effluence of divinity in the first sketch; and there, if 
anywhere, you find the pure light of inspiration, which 
the subsequent toil of the artist serves to bring out in 
stronger lustre, indeed, but likewise adulterates it with 
what belongs to an inferior mood. The aroma and 
fragrance of new thought were perceptible in these 
designs, after three centuries of wear and tear. The 
charm lay partly in their very imperfection; for this is 
suggestive, and sets the imagination at work; whereas, 
the finished picture, if a good one, leaves the spectator 
nothing to do, and, if bad, confuses, stupefies, disen¬ 
chants, and disheartens him. 

Hilda was greatly interested in this rich portfolio. 


122 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


She lingered so long over one particular sketch, that 
Miriam asked her what discovery she had made. 

“ Look at it carefully,” replied Hilda, putting the 
sketch into her hands. “ If you take pains to disen¬ 
tangle the design from those pencil-marks that seem 
to have been scrawled over it, I think you will see 
something very curious.” 

“ It is a hopeless affair, I am afraid,” said Miriam. 
“ I have neither your faith, dear Hilda, nor your percep¬ 
tive faculty. Fie ! what a blurred scrawl it is indeed ! ” 

The drawing had originally been very slight, and had 
suffered more from time and hard usage than almost 
any other in the collection; it appeared, too, that there 
Fad been an attempt (perhaps by the very hand that 
drew it) to obliterate the design. By Hilda’s help, how¬ 
ever, Miriam pretty distinctly made out a winged figure 
with a drawn sword, and a dragon, or a demon, pros¬ 
trate at his feet. 

“ I am convinced,” said Hilda, in a low, reverential 
tone, “that Guido’s own touches are on that ancient 
scrap of paper! If so, it must be his original sketch 
for the picture of the Archangel Michael, setting his 
foot upon the demon, in the Church of the Cappuccini. 
The composition and general arrangement of the sketch 
are the same with those of the picture; the only differ¬ 
ence being, that the demon has a more upturned face, 
and scowls vindictively at the Archangel, who turns 
away his eyes in painful disgust.” 

“No wonder!” responded Miriam. “The expres¬ 
sion suits the daintiness of Michael’s character, as 
Guido represents him. He never could have looked 
the demon in the face! ” 

“ Miriam ! ” exclaimed her friend, reproachfully, “ you 
grieve me, and you know it, by pretending to speak 
contemptuously of the most beautiful and the divinest 
figure that mortal painter ever drew.” 

“Forgive me, Hilda!” said Miriam. “You take 
these matters more religiously than I can, for my life. 
Guido’s Archangel is a fine picture, of course, but it 
never impressed me as it does you.” 


AN AESTHETIC COMPANY 


12 3 


“Well; we will not talk of that,” answered Hilda. 
“What I wanted you to notice, in this sketch, is the 
face of the demon. It is entirely unlike the demon of 
the finished picture. Guido, you know, always affirmed 
that the resemblance to Cardinal Pamfili was either 
casual or imaginary. Now, here is the face as he first 
conceived it.” 

“ And a more energetic demon, altogether, than that 
of the finished picture,” said Kenyon, taking the sketch 
into his hand. “What a spirit is conveyed into the 
ugliness of this strong, writhing, squirming dragon, 
under the Archangel’s foot! Neither is the face an 
impossible one. Upon my word, I have seen it some¬ 
where, and on the shoulders of a living man! ” 

“ And so have I,” said Hilda. “ It was what struck 
me from the first.” 

“ Donatello, look at this face! ” cried Kenyon. 

The young Italian, as may be supposed, took little 
interest in matters of art, and seldom or never ventured 
an opinion respecting them. After holding the sketch 
a single instant in his hand, he flung it from him with a 
shudder of disgust and repugnance, and a frown that 
had all the bitterness of hatred. 

“ I know the face well! ” whispered he. “ It is Mir¬ 
iam’s model! ” 

It was acknowledged both by Kenyon and Hilda that 
they had detected, or fancied, the resemblance which 
Donatello so strongly affirmed; and it added not a little 
to the grotesque and weird character which, half play¬ 
fully, half seriously, they assigned to Miriam’s attend¬ 
ant, to think of him as personating the demon’s part in 
a picture of more than two centuries ago. Had Guido, 
in his effort to imagine the utmost of sin and misery, 
which his pencil could represent, hit ideally upon just 
this face? Or was it an actual portrait of somebody 
that haunted the old master, as Miriam was haunted 
now ? Did the ominous shadow follow him through all 
the sunshine of his earlier career, and into the gloom 
that gathered about its close ? And when Guido died, 
did the spectre betake himself to those ancient sepul- 


1*4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


chres, there awaiting a new victim, till it was Miriam’s 
ill-hap to encounter him ? 

“ I do not acknowledge the resemblance at all,” said 
Miriam, looking narrowly at the sketch; “ and, as I 
have drawn the face twenty times, I think you will own 
that I am the best judge.” 

A discussion here arose, in reference to Guido’s Arch¬ 
angel, and it was agreed that these four friends should 
visit the Church of the Cappuccini the next morning, 
and critically examine the picture in question ; the simi¬ 
larity between it and the sketch being, at all events, a 
very curious circumstance. 

It was now a little past ten o’clock, when some of the 
company, who had been standing in a balcony, declared 
the moonlight to be resplendent. They proposed a ram¬ 
ble through the streets, taking in their way some of those 
scenes of ruin, which produced their best effects under 
the splendor of the Italian moon. 


CHAPTER XVI 


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE 

T HE proposal for a moonlight ramble was received 
with acclamation by all the younger portion of the 
company. They immediately set forth and descended 
from story to story, dimly lighting their way by waxen 
tapers, which are a necessary equipment to those whose 
thoroughfare, in the night-time, lies up and down a Roman 
staircase. Emerging from the courtyard of the edifice, 
they looked upward and saw the sky full of light, which 
seemed to have a delicate purple or crimson lustre, or, at 
least, some richer tinge than the cold, white moonshine 
of other skies. It gleamed over the front of the opposite 
palace, showing the architectural ornaments of its cor¬ 
nice and pillared portal, as well as the iron-barred base¬ 
ment windows, that gave such a prison-like aspect to the 
structure, and the shabbiness and squalor that lay along 
its base. A cobbler was just shutting up his little shop, 
in the basement of the palace; a cigar vender’s lantern 
flared in the blast that came through the archway; a 
French sentinel paced to and fro before the portal; 
a homeless dog, that haunted thereabouts, barked as 
obstreperously at the party as if he were the domestic 
guardian of the precincts. 

The air was quietly full of the noise of falling water, 
the cause of which was nowhere visible, though appar¬ 
ently near at hand. This pleasant, natural sound, not 
unlike that of a distant cascade in the forest, may be 
heard in many of the Roman streets and piazzas, when 
the tumult at the city is hushed; for consuls, emperors, 
and popes, the great men of every age, have found no 
better way of immortalizing their memories, than by 
the shifting, indestructible, ever new, yet unchanging, 

125 


126 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


up-gush and downfall of water. They have written 
their names in that unstable element, and proved it a 
more durable record than brass or marble. 

“ Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, 
boyish artists for your companion,” said Miriam, when 
she found the Italian youth at her side. “ I am not now 
in a merry mood, as when we set all the world a-dancing 
the other afternoon, in the Borghese grounds.” 

“ I never wish to dance any more,” answered Dona¬ 
tello. 

“What a melancholy was in that tone!” exclaimed 
Miriam. “You are getting spoilt, in this dreary Rome, 
and will be as wise and as wretched as all the rest of 
mankind, unless you go back soon to your Tuscan vine¬ 
yards. Well; give me your arm then ! But take care 
that no friskiness comes over you. We must walk evenly 
and heavily to-night! ” 

The party arranged itself according to- its natural 
affinities or casual likings; a sculptor generally choos¬ 
ing a painter, and a painter a sculptor, for his compan¬ 
ion, in preference to brethren of their own art. Kenyon 
would gladly have taken Hilda to himself, and have 
drawn her a little aside from the throng of merry way¬ 
farers. But she kept near Miriam, and seemed, in her 
gentle and quiet way, to decline a separate alliance either 
with him or any other of her acquaintances. 

So they set forth, and had gone but a little way, when 
the narrow street emerged into a piazza, on one side of 
which, glistening, and dimpling in the moonlight, was 
the most famous fountain in Rome. Its murmur — not 
to say its uproar — had been in the ears of the company, 
ever since they came into the open air. It was the 
Fountain of Trevi, which draws its precious water from 
a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows hither¬ 
ward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles 
forth as pure as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its 
wellspring, by her father’s door. 

“ I shall sip as much of this water as the hollow of 
my hand will hold,” said Miriam. “ I am leaving Rome 
in a few days; and the tradition goes, that a parting 


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE 


127 


draught at the Fountain of Trevi insures the traveller’s 
return, whatever obstacles and improbabilities may seem 
to beset him. Will you drink, Donatello ? ” 

“ Signorina, what you drink, I drink,” said the youth. 

They and the rest of the party descended some steps 
to the water’s brim, and, after a sip or two, stood gazing 
at the absurd design of the fountain, where some sculptor 
of Bernini’s school had gone absolutely mad, in marble. 
It was a great palace-front, with niches and many bas- 
reliefs, out of which looked Agrippa’s legendary virgin, 
and several of the allegoric sisterhood; while, at the 
base, appeared Neptune, with his floundering steeds and 
Tritons blowing their horns about him, and twenty other 
artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothed 
into better taste than was native to them. 

And, after all, it was as magnificent a piece of work as 
ever human skill contrived. At the foot of the palatial 
fagade, was strown, with careful art and ordered irregu¬ 
larity, a broad and broken heap of massive rock, looking 
as if it might have lain there since the deluge. Over a 
central precipice fell the water, in a semicircular cascade; 
and from a hundred crevices, on all sides, snowy jets 
gushed up, and streams spouted out of the mouths and 
nostrils of stone monsters, and fell in glistening drops; 
while other rivulets, that had run wild, came leaping from 
one rude step to another, over stones that were mossy, 
slimy, and green with sedge, because, in a century of 
their wild play, Nature had adopted the Fountain of 
Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her own. Finally, 
the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing, with joy¬ 
ous haste and never-ceasing murmur, poured itself into a 
great marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it with a quiv¬ 
ering tide ; on which was seen, continually, a snowy semi¬ 
circle of momentary foam from the principal cascade, as 
well as a multitude of snow-points from smaller jets. 
The basin occupied the whole breadth of the piazza, 
whence flights of steps descended to its border. A boat 
might float, and make voyages from one shore to another, 
in this mimic lake. 

In the daytime, there is hardly a livelier scene in 


128 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Rome than the neighborhood of the Fountain of Trevi; 
for the piazza is then filled with the stalls of vegetable 
and fruit dealers, chestnut roasters, cigar venders, and 
other people, whose petty and wandering traffic is 
transacted in the open air. It is likewise thronged 
with idlers, lounging over the iron railing, and with 
Forestieri, who came hither to see the famous fountain. 
Here, also, are seen men with buckets, urchins with 
cans, and maidens (a picture as old as the patriarchal 
times) bearing their pitchers upon their heads. For 
the water of Trevi is in request, far and wide, as 
the most refreshing draught for feverish lips, the pleas¬ 
antest to mingle with wine, and the wholesomest to 
drink, in its native purity, that can anywhere be found. 
But, now, at nearly midnight, the piazza was a soli¬ 
tude ; and it was a delight . to behold this untamable 
water, sporting by itself in the moonshine, and com¬ 
pelling all the elaborate trivialities of art to assume a 
natural aspect, in accordance with its own powerful 
simplicity. 

“What would be done with this water-power,” sug¬ 
gested an artist, “ if we had it in one of our American 
cities ? would they employ it to turn the machinery of a 
cotton-mill, I wonder ? ” 

“ The good people would pull down those rampant 
marble deities,” said Kenyon, “and possibly they would 
give me a commission to carve the one-and-thirty (is that 
the number ?) sister States, each pouring a silver stream 
from a separate can into one vast basin, which should 
represent the grand reservoir of natural prosperity.” 

“ Or, if they wanted a bit of satire,” remarked an Eng¬ 
lish artist, “you could set those same one-and-thirty 
States to cleansing the national flag of any stains that it 
may have incurred. The Roman washerwomen at the 
lavatory yonder, plying their labor in the open air, would 
serve admirably as models.” 

“ I have often intended to visit this fountain by moon¬ 
light,” said Miriam, “ because it was here that the inter¬ 
view took place between Corinne and Lord Neville, after 
their separation and temporary estrangement. Pray 



THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI 








































A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE 


129 


come behind me, one of you, and let me try whether the 
face can be recognized in the water.” 

Leaning over the stone brim of the basin, she heard 
footsteps stealing behind her, and knew that somebody 
was looking over her shoulder. The moonshine fell 
directly behind Miriam, illuminating the palace-front and 
the whole scene of statues and rocks, and filling the 
basin, as it were, with tremulous and palpable light. 
Corinne, it will be remembered, knew Lord Neville by the 
reflection of his face in the water. In Miriam’s case, 
however, (owing to the agitation of the water, its trans¬ 
parency, and the angle at which she was compelled to lean 
over,) no reflected image appeared; nor, from the same 
causes, would it have been possible for the recognition 
between Corinne and her lover to take place. The moon, 
indeed, flung Miriam’s shadow at the bottom of the basin, 
as well as two more shadows of persons who had followed 
her, on either side. 

“ Three shadows ! ” exclaimed Miriam. “ Three sep¬ 
arate shadows, all so black and heavy that they sink in 
the water! There they lie on the bottom, as if all three 
were drowned together. This shadow on my right is 
Donatello; I know him by his curls, and the turn of his 
head. My left-hand companion puzzles me; a shape¬ 
less mass, as indistinct as the premonition of calamity! 
Which of you can it be ? Ah ! ” 

She had turned round, while speaking, and saw beside 
her the strange creature, whose attendance on her was 
already familiar, as a marvel and a jest, to the whole 
company of artists. A general burst of laughter fol¬ 
lowed the recognition; while the model leaned towards 
Miriam, as she shrank from him, and muttered something 
that was inaudible to those who witnessed the scene. By 
his gestures, however, they concluded that he was invit¬ 
ing her to bathe her hands. 

“ He cannot be an Italian; at least, not a Roman,” 
observed an artist. “ I never knew one of them to care 
about ablution. See him now! It is as if he were try¬ 
ing to wash off the time-stains and earthly soil of a thou¬ 
sand years! ” 


1 3° 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Dipping his hands into the capacious washbowl before 
him, the model rubbed them together with the utmost 
vehemence. Ever and anon, too, he peeped into the 
water, as if expecting to see the whole Fountain of Trevi 
turbid with the results of his ablution. Miriam looked 
at him, some little time, with an aspect of real terror, and 
even imitated him by leaning over to peep into the basin. 
Recovering herself, she took up some of the water in 
the hollow of her hand, and practised an old form of 
exorcism by flinging it in her persecutor’s face. 

“ In the name of all the Saints,” cried she, “ vanish, 
Demon, and let me be free of you, now and forever! ” 

“ It will not suffice,” said some of the mirthful party, 
“unless the Fountain of Trevi gushes with holy water.” 

In fact, the exorcism was quite ineffectual upon the 
pertinacious demon, or whatever the apparition might 
be. Still he washed his brown, bony talons; still he 
peered into the vast basin, as if all the water of that 
great drinking-cup of Rome must needs be stained 
black or sanguine; and still he gesticulated to Miriam 
to follow his example. The spectators laughed loudly, 
but yet with a kind of constraint; for the creature’s 
aspect was strangely repulsive and hideous. 

Miriam felt her arm seized violently by Donatello. 
She looked at him, and beheld a tiger-like fury gleaming 
from his wild eyes. 

“ Bid me drown him! ” whispered he, shuddering 
between rage and horrible disgust. “You shall hear 
his death-gurgle in another instant! ” 

“Peace, peace, Donatello!” said Miriam, soothingly; 
for this naturally gentle and sportive being seemed all 
aflame with animal rage. “ Do him no mischief! He 
is mad; and we are as mad as he, if we suffer ourselves 
to be disquieted by his antics. Let us leave him to 
bathe his hands till the fountain run dry, if he find 
solace and pastime in it. What is it to you or me, 
Donatello ? There, there ! Be quiet, foolish boy! ” 
Her tone and gesture were such as she might have 
used in taming down the wrath of a faithful hound, that 
had taken upon himself to avenge some supposed affront 


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE 


131 

to his mistress. She smoothed the young man’s curls 
(for his fierce and sudden fury seemed to bristle among 
his hair), and touched his cheek with her soft palm, till 
his angry mood was a little assuaged. 

“ Signorina, do I look as when you first knew me ? ” 
asked he, with a heavy, tremulous sigh, as they went 
onward, somewhat apart from their companions. “ Me- 
thinks there has been a change upon me, these many 
months ; and more and more, these last few days. The 
joy is gone out of my life; all gone! all gone! Feel 
my hand! Is it not very hot? Ah; and my heart 
burns hotter still! ” 

“ My poor Donatello, you are ill! ” said Miriam, with 
deep sympathy and pity. “ This melancholy and sickly 
Rome is stealing away the rich, joyous life that belongs 
to you. Go back, my dear friend, to your home among 
the hills, where (as I gather from what you have told 
me) your days were filled with simple and blameless 
delights. Have you found aught in the world that is 
worth what you there enjoyed? Tell me truly, Dona¬ 
tello ! ” 

“ Yes ! ” replied the young man. 

“ And what, in Heaven’s name ? ” asked she. 

“ This burning pain in my heart,” said Donatello; “ for 
you are in the midst of it.” 

By this time, they had left the Fountain of Trevi con¬ 
siderably behind them. Little further allusion was made 
to the scene at its margin; for the party regarded Mir¬ 
iam’s persecutor as diseased in his wits, and were hardly 
to be surprised by any eccentricity in his deportment. 

Threading several narrow streets, they passed through 
the Piazza of the Holy Apostles, and soon came to Tra¬ 
jan’s forum. All over the surface of what once was 
Rome, it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the 
ancient city, as if it were a corpse, and he the sexton ; 
so that, in eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has 
grown very deep, by the slow scattering of dust, and the 
accumulation of more modern decay upon older ruin. 

This was the fate, also, of Trajan’s forum, until some 
papal antiquary, a few hundred years ago, began to hoi- 


IJ2 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


low it out again, and disclosed the full height of the 
gigantic column, wreathed round with bas-reliefs of the 
old Emperor’s warlike deeds. In the area before it, 
stands a grove of stone, consisting of the broken and 
unequal shafts of a vanished temple, still keeping a ma¬ 
jestic order, and apparently incapable of further demo¬ 
lition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built, 
no doubt, out of the spoil of its old magnificence) look 
down into the hollow space whence these pillars rise. 

One of the immense gray granite shafts lay in the 
piazza, on the verge of the area. It was a great, solid 
fact of the Past, making old Rome actually sensible to 
the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor force 
of thought, nor magic of song, could so vitally assure us 
that Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what 
its rulers and people wrought. 

“And, see!” said Kenyon, laying his hand upon it, 
“there is still a polish remaining on the hard substance 
of the pillar; and even now, late as it is, I can feel very 
sensibly the warmth of the noonday sun, which did its 
best to heat it through. This shaft will endure forever! 
The polish of eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half 
rubbed off, and the heat of to-day’s sunshine, lingering 
into the night, seem almost equally ephemeral in relation 
to it.” 

“ There is comfort to be found in the pillar,” remarked 
Miriam, “ hard and heavy as it is. Lying here forever, 
as it will, it makes all human trouble appear but a mo¬ 
mentary annoyance.” 

“ And human happiness as evanescent too,” observed 
Hilda, sighing; “ and beautiful art hardly less so ! I do 
not love to think that this dull stone, merely by its mas¬ 
siveness, will last infinitely longer than any picture, in 
spite of the spiritual life that ought to give it immor¬ 
tality ! ” 

“ My poor little Hilda,” said Miriam, kissing her com¬ 
passionately, “would you sacrifice this greatest mortal 
consolation, which we derive from the transitoriness of 
all things — from the right of saying, in every conjunc¬ 
ture, ‘This, too, will pass away’—would you give up 


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE 


133 

this unspeakable boon, for the sake of making a picture 
eternal ? ” 

Their moralizing strain was interrupted by a demon¬ 
stration from the rest of the party, who, after talking 
and laughing together, suddenly joined their voices, and 
shouted at full pitch 

“Trajan! Trajan!” 

“ Why do you deafen us with such an uproar ? ” 
inquired Miriam. 

In truth, the whole piazza had been filled with their 
idle vociferation ; the echoes from the surrounding houses 
reverberating the cry of “Trajan,” on all sides; as if 
there was a great search for that imperial personage, 
and not so much as a handful of his ashes to be found. 

“ Why, it was a good opportunity to air our voices in 
this resounding piazza,” replied one of the artists. “ Be¬ 
sides, we had really some hopes of summoning Trajan 
to look at his column, which, you know, he never saw in 
his lifetime. Here is your model (who, they say, lived 
and sinned before Trajan’s death) still wandering about 
Rome ; and why not the Emperor Trajan ? ” 

“ Dead emperors have very little delight in their col¬ 
umns, I am afraid,” observed Kenyon. “All that rich 
sculpture of Trajan’s bloody warfare, twining from the 
base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly spec¬ 
tacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge, 
storied shaft must be laid before the judgment-seat, as 
a piece of the evidence of what he did in the flesh. If 
ever I am employed to sculpture a hero’s monument, I 
shall think of this, as I put in the bas-reliefs of the 
pedestal! ” 

“There are sermons in stones,” said Hilda, thought¬ 
fully, smiling at Kenyon’s morality; “ and especially in 
the stones of Rome.” 

The party moved on, but deviated a little from the 
straight way, in order to glance at the ponderous re¬ 
mains of the Temple of Mars Ultor, within which a con¬ 
vent of nuns is now established, — a dove-cote, in the 
war-god’s mansion. At only a little distance, they passed 
the portico of a Temple of Minerva, most rich and beau- 


134 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


tiful in architecture, but wofully gnawed by time and 
shattered by violence, besides being buried midway in 
the accumulation of soil, that rises over dead Rome like 
a flood-tide. Within this edifice of antique sanctity, a 
baker’s shop was now established, with an entrance on 
one side; for, everywhere, the remnants of old grandeur 
and divinity have been made available for the meanest 
necessities of to-day. 

“ The baker is just drawing his loaves out of the oven,” 
remarked Kenyon. “ Do you smell how sour they are ? 
I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge for the dese¬ 
cration of her temple) had slyly poured vinegar into the 
batch, if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer 
their bread in the acetous fermentation.” 

They turned into the Via Alessandria, and thus gained 
the rear of the Temple of Peace, and passing beneath its 
great arches, pursued their way along a hedge-bordered 
lane. In all probability, a stately Roman street lay buried 
beneath that rustic-looking pathway; for they had now 
emerged from the close and narrow avenues of the mod¬ 
ern city, and were treading on a soil where the seeds of 
antique grandeur had not yet produced the squalid crop 
that elsewhere sprouts from them. Grassy as the lane 
was, it skirted along heaps of shapeless ruin and the 
bare site of the vast temple that Hadrian planned and 
built. It terminated on the edge of a somewhat abrupt 
descent, at the foot of which, with a muddy ditch between, 
rose, in the bright moonlight, the great curving wall and 
multitudinous arches of the Coliseum. 


CHAPTER XVII 
Miriam’s trouble 


A S usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages 
stood at the entrance of this famous ruin, and the 
precincts and interior were anything but a solitude. The 
French sentinel on duty beneath the principal archway 
eyed our party curiously, but offered no obstacle to their 
admission. Within, the moonlight filled and flooded the 
great empty space; it glowed upon tier above tier of 
ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even too dis¬ 
tinctly visible. The splendor of the revelation took away 
that inestimable effect of dimness and mystery by which 
the imagination might be assisted to build a grander 
structure than the Coliseum, and to shatter it with a 
more picturesque decay. Byron’s celebrated description 
is better than the reality. He beheld the scene in his 
mind’s eye, through the witchery of many intervening 
years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead 
of this broad glow of moonshine. 

The party of our friends sat down, three or four of 
them on a prostrate column, another on a shapeless lump 
of marble, once a Roman altar; others on the steps of 
one of the Christian shrines. Goths and barbarians 
though they were, they chatted as gayly together as if 
they belonged to the gentle and pleasant race of people 
who now inhabit Italy. There was much pastime and 
gayety just then in the area of the Coliseum, where so 
many gladiators and wild beasts had fought and died, 
and where so much blood of Christian martyrs had been 
lapped up by that fiercest of wild beasts, the Roman 
populace of yore. Some youths and maidens were run¬ 
ning merry races across the open space, and playing at 
hide-and-seek a little way within the duskiness of the 

J 35 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


*36 

ground-tier of arches, whence now and then you could 
hear the half-shriek, half-laugh of a frolicsome girl, whom 
the shadow had betrayed into a young man’s arms. Elder 
groups were seated on the fragments of pillars and blocks 
of marble that lay round the verge of the arena, talking 
in the quick, short ripple of the Italian tongue. On the 
steps of the great black cross in the centre of the Coli¬ 
seum, sat a party singing scraps of songs, with much 
laughter and merriment between the stanzas. 

It was a strange place for song and mirth. That black 
cross marks one of the special blood-spots of the earth, 
where thousands of times over the dying gladiator fell, 
and more of human agony has been endured for the mere 
pastime of the multitude than on the breadth of many 
battle-fields. From all this crime and suffering, however, 
the spot has derived a more than common sanctity. An 
inscription promises seven years’ indulgence, seven years 
of remission from the pains of purgatory, and earlier 
enjoyment of heavenly bliss, for each separate kiss im¬ 
printed on the black cross. What better use could be 
made of life, after middle-age, when the accumulated 
sins are many and the remaining temptations few, than 
to spend it all in kissing the black cross of the Coliseum ! 

Besides its central consecration, the whole area has 
been made sacred by a range of shrines, which are 
erected round the circle, each commanding some scene 
or circumstance of the Saviour’s passion and suffering. 
In accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim was 
making his progress from shrine to shrine upon his 
knees, and saying a penitential prayer at each. Light- 
footed girls ran across the path along which he crept, 
or sported with their friends close by the shrines where 
he was kneeling. The pilgrim took no heed, and the 
girls meant no irreverence; for in Italy religion jostles 
along side by side with business and sport, after a fash¬ 
ion of its own, and people are accustomed to kneel down 
and pray, or see others praying between two fits of mer¬ 
riment, or between two sins. 

To make an end of our description, a red twinkle of 
light was visible amid the breadth of shadow that fell 


MIRIAM’S TROUBLE 


i37 


across the upper part of the Coliseum. Now it glim¬ 
mered through a line of arches, or threw a broader 
gleam as it rose out of some profound abyss of ruin; 
now it was muffled by a heap of shrubbery which had 
adventurously clambered to that dizzy height; and so 
the red light kept ascending to loftier and loftier ranges 
of the structure until it stood like a star where the blue 
sky rested against the Coliseum’s topmost wall. It indi¬ 
cated a party of English or Americans paying the inevi¬ 
table visit by moonlight, and exalting themselves with 
raptures that were Byron’s, not their own. 

Our company of artists sat on the fallen column, the 
pagan altar, and the steps of the Christian shrine, enjoy¬ 
ing the moonlight and shadow, the present gayety and 
the gloomy reminiscences of the scene, in almost equal 
share. Artists, indeed, are lifted by the ideality of their 
pursuits a little way off the earth, and are therefore 
able to catch the evanescent fragrance that floats in 
the atmosphere of life above the heads of the ordinary 
crowd. Even if they seem endowed with little imagina¬ 
tion individually, yet there is a property, a gift, a talis¬ 
man, common to their class, entitling them to partake 
somewhat more bountifully than other people in the 
thin delights of moonshine and romance. 

“ How delightful this is ! ” said Hilda; and she sighed 
for very pleasure. 

“Yes,” said Kenyon, who sat on the column, at her 
side. “The Coliseum is far more delightful, as we 
enjoy it now, than when eighty thousand persons sat 
squeezed together, row above row, to see their fellow- 
creatures torn by lions and tigers limb from limb. What 
a strange thought that the Coliseum was really built for 
us, and has not come to its best uses till almost two 
thousand years after it was finished! ” 

“The Emperor Vespasian scarcely had us in his 
mind,” said Hilda, smiling; “but I thank him none the 
less for building it.” 

“ He gets small thanks, I fear, from the people 
whose bloody instincts he pampered,” rejoined Ken¬ 
yon. “ Fancy a nightly assemblage of eighty thousand 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


138 

melancholy and remorseful ghosts, looking down from 
those tiers of broken arches, striving to repent of the 
savage pleasures which they once enjoyed, but still 
longing to enjoy them over again.” 

“You bring a Gothic horror into this peaceful moon¬ 
light scene,” said Hilda. 

“ Nay, I have good authority for peopling the Coli¬ 
seum with phantoms,” replied the sculptor. “ Do you 
remember that veritable scene in Benvenuto Cellini’s 
autobiography, in which a necromancer of his acquaint¬ 
ance draws a magic circle — just where the black cross 
stands now, I suppose — and raises myriads of demons ? 
Benvenuto saw them with his own eyes — giants, pig¬ 
mies, and other creatures of frightful aspect — capering 
and dancing on yonder walls. Those spectres must 
have been Romans, in their lifetime, and frequenters of 
this bloody amphitheatre.” 

“I see a spectre now! ” said Hilda, with a little thrill 
of uneasiness. “ Have you watched that pilgrim, who 
is going round the whole circle of shrines, on his knees, 
and praying with such fervency at every one? Now 
that he has revolved so far in his orbit, and has the 
moonshine on his face as he turns towards us, methinks 
I recognize him ! ” 

“And so do I,” said Kenyon. “Poor Miriam! Do 
you think she sees him ? ” 

They looked round, and perceived that Miriam had 
risen from the steps of the shrine and disappeared. 
She had shrunk back, in fact, into the deep obscurity 
of an arch that opened just behind them. 

Donatello, whose faithful watch was no more to be 
eluded than that of a hound, had stolen after her, and 
became the innocent witness of a spectacle that had its 
own kind of horror. Unaware of his presence, and 
fancying herself wholly unseen, the beautiful Miriam 
began to gesticulate extravagantly, gnashing her teeth, 
flinging her arms wildly abroad, stamping with foot. It 
was as if she had stepped aside for an instant, solely to 
snatch the relief of a brief fit of madness. Persons in 
acute trouble, or laboring under strong excitement, with 


MIRIAM’S TROUBLE 


l 39 


a necessity for concealing it, are prone to relieve their 
nerves in this wild way; although, when practicable, 
they find a more effectual solace in shrieking aloud. 

Thus, as soon as she threw off her self-control, under 
the dusky arches of the Coliseum, we may consider 
Miriam as a mad woman, concentrating the elements of 
a long insanity into that instant. 

“ Signorina ! signorina ! have pity on me ! ” cried 
Donatello, approaching her — “this is too terrible! ” 

“ How dare you look at me ? ” exclaimed Miriam, 
with a start; then, whispering below her breath, “ men 
have been struck dead for a less offence! ” 

“ If you desire it, or need it,” said Donatello, humbly, 
“ I shall not be loth to die.” 

“ Donatello,” said Miriam, coming close to the young 
man, and speaking low, but still the almost insanity of 
the moment vibrating in her voice, “ if you love yourself, 
if you desire those earthly blessings, such as you, of all 
men, were made for; if you would come to a good old 
age among your olive-orchards and your Tuscan vines, 
as your forefathers did; if you would leave children to 
enjoy the same peaceful, happy, innocent life, then flee 
from me. Look not behind you! Get you gone with¬ 
out another word.” He gazed sadly at her, but did not 
stir. “I tell you,” Miriam went on, “there is a great 
evil hanging over me ! I know it; I see it in the sky; 
I feel it in the air! It will overwhelm me as utterly as 
if this arch should crumble down upon our heads ! It 
will crush you, too, if you stand at my side! Depart, 
then; and make the sign of the cross, as your faith bids 
you, when an evil spirit is nigh. Cast me off, or you 
are lost forever.” 

A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello’s face 
than had hitherto seemed to belong to its simple expres¬ 
sion and sensuous beauty. 

“I will never quit you,” he said; “you cannot drive 
me from you.” 

“ Poor Donatello! ” said Miriam, in a changed tone, 
and rather to herself than him. “Is there no other that 
seeks me out — follows me — is obstinate to share my 


140 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


affliction and my doom — but only you! They call me 
beautiful; and I used to fancy that, at my need, I could 
bring the whole world to my feet. And lo! here is my 
utmost need ; and my beauty and my gifts have brought 
me only this poor, simple boy. Half-witted, they call 
him; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy. And I 
accept his aid! To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him 
all! Ah! what a sin to stain his joyous nature with the 
blackness of a woe like mine! ” 

She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as 
Donatello pressed it to his lips. They were now about 
to emerge from the depth of the arch ; but, just then, the 
kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of the 
shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam 
had been sitting. There, as at the other shrines, he 
prayed, or seemed to pray. It struck Kenyon, however, 
— who sat close by, and saw his face distinctly,— that the 
suppliant was merely performing an enjoined penance, 
and without the penitence that ought to have given it 
effectual life. Even as he knelt, his eyes wandered, and 
Miriam soon felt that he had detected her, half hidden as 
she was within the obscurity of the arch. 

“ He is evidently a good Catholic, however,” whispered 
one of the party. “ After all, I fear we cannot identify 
him with the ancient pagan who haunts the catacombs.” 

“ The doctors of the Propaganda may have converted 
him,” said another; “ they have had fifteen hundred years 
to perform the task.” 

The company now deemed it time to continue their 
ramble. Emerging from a side entrance of the Coliseum, 
they had on their left the Arch of Constantine, and, above 
it, the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the Caesars; 
portions of which have taken shape anew, in mediaeval 
convents and modern villas. They turned their faces 
cityward, and, treading over the broad flagstones of the 
old Roman pavement, passed through the Arch of Titus. 
The moon shone brightly enough within it, to show the 
seven-branched Jewish candlestick, cut in the marble of 
the interior. The original of that awful trophy lies 
buried, at this moment, in the yellow mud of the Tiber; 


MIRIAM’S TROUBLE 


141 * 


and, could its gold of Ophir again be brought to light, it 
would be the most precious relic of past ages, in the 
estimation of both Jew and Gentile. 

Standing amid so much ancient dust, it is difficult to 
spare the reader the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on 
which hundreds of tourists have already insisted. Over 
this half-worn pavement, and beneath this Arch of Titus, 
the Roman armies had trodden in their outward march, to 
fight battles, a world’s width away. Returning victorious, 
with royal captives and inestimable spoil, a Roman tri¬ 
umph, that most gorgeous pageant of earthly pride, had 
streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession over 
these same flagstones, and through this yet stalwart arch¬ 
way. It is politic, however, to make few allusions to such 
a past; nor, if we would create an interest in the charac¬ 
ters of our story, is it wise to suggest how Cicero’s foot 
may have stepped on yonder stone, or how Horace was 
wont to stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with 
the measure of the ode that was ringing in his mind. The 
very ghosts of that massive and stately epoch have so 
much density that the actual people of to-day seem the 
thinner of the two, and stand more ghostlike by the arches 
and columns, letting the rich sculpture be discerned 
through their ill-compacted substance. 

The party kept onward, often meeting pairs and groups 
of midnight strollers like themselves. On such a moon¬ 
light night as this, Rome keeps itself awake and stirring, 
and is full of song and pastime, the noise of which min¬ 
gles with your dreams, if you have gone betimes to bed. 
But it is better to be abroad, and take our own share of 
the enjoyable time; for the languor that weighs so heavily 
in the Roman atmosphere by day, is lightened beneath 
the moon and stars. 

They had now reached the precincts of the Forum. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE 

ET us settle it,” said Kenyon, stamping his foot 



J^ firmly down, “ that this is precisely the spot where 
the chasm opened, into which Curtius precipitated his 
good steed and himself. Imagine the great, dusky gap, 
impenetrably deep, and with half-shaped monsters and 
hideous faces looming upward out of it, to the vast 
affright of the good citizens who peeped over the brim ! 
There, now, is a subject, hitherto unthought of, for a grim 
and ghastly story, and, methinks, with a moral as deep 
as the gulf itself. Within it, beyond a question, there 
were prophetic visions — intimations of all the future ca¬ 
lamities of Rome — shades of Goths and Gauls, and even 
of the French soldiers of to-day. It was a pity to close 
it up so soon! I would give much for a peep into such 
a chasm.” 

“ I fancy,” remarked Miriam, “ that every person takes 
a peep into it in moments of gloom and despondency; 
that is to say, in his moments of deepest insight.” 

“ Where is it, then ? ” asked Hilda. “ I never peeped 
into it.” 

“ Wait, and it will open for you,” replied her friend. 
“ The chasm was merely one of the orifices of that pit of 
blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere. The firmest 
substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread 
over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive 
stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earth¬ 
quake to open the chasm. A footstep, a little heavier 
than ordinary, will serve; and we must step very daintily, 
not to break through the crust at any moment. By and 
by, we inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism 
in Curtius to precipitate himself there, in advance; for 


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE 


*43 


all Rome, you see, has been swallowed up in that gulf, in 
spite of him. The Palace of the Caesars has gone down 
thither, with a hollow rumbling sound of its fragments! 
All the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of 
statues have been thrown after! All the armies and the 
triumphs have marched into the great chasm, with their 
martial music playing, as they stepped over the brink. 
All the heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! All piled 
upon poor Curtius, who thought to have saved them all! 
I am loth to smile at the self-conceit of that gallant horse¬ 
man, but cannot well avoid it.” 

“ It grieves me to hear you speak thus, Miriam,” said 
Hilda, whose natural and cheerful piety was shocked by 
her friend’s gloomy view of human destinies. “ It seems 
to me that there is no chasm, nor any hideous emptiness 
under our feet, except what the evil within us digs. If 
there be such a chasm, let us bridge it over with good 
thoughts and deeds, and we shall tread safely to the other 
side. It was the guilt of Rome, no doubt, that caused 
this gulf to open ; and Curtius filled it up with his heroic 
self-sacrifice and patriotism, which was the best virtue 
that the old Romans knew. Every wrong thing makes 
the gulf deeper; every right one helps to fill it up. As 
the evil of Rome was far more than its good, the whole 
commonwealth finally sank into it, indeed, but of no 
original necessity.” 

“Well, Hilda, it came to the same thing at last,” an¬ 
swered Miriam, despondingly. 

“ Doubtless, too,” resumed the sculptor (for his imagi¬ 
nation was greatly excited by the idea of this wondrous 
chasm), “ all the blood that the Romans shed, whether 
on battle-fields, or in the Coliseum, or on the cross, — in 
whatever public or private murder, — ran into this fatal 
gulf, and formed a mighty subterranean lake of gore, 
right beneath our feet. The blood from the thirty 
wounds in Caesar’s breast flowed hitherward, and that 
pure little rivulet from Virginia’s bosom, too ! Virginia, 
beyond all question, was stabbed by her father, precisely 
where we are standing.” 

“ Then the spot is hallowed forever ! ” said Hilda. 


144 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Is there such blessed potency in bloodshed ? ” asked 
Miriam. “Nay, Hilda, do not protest! I take your 
meaning rightly.” 

They again moved forward. And still, from the Forum 
and the Via Sacra, from beneath the arches of the Temple 
of Peace on one side, and the acclivity of the Palace of 
the Caesars on the other, there arose singing voices of 
parties that were strolling through the moonlight. Thus, 
the air was full of kindred melodies that encountered 
one another, and twined themselves into a broad, vague 
music, out of which no single strain could be disentan¬ 
gled. These good examples, as well as the harmonious 
influences of the hour, incited our artist-friends to make 
proof of their own vocal powers. With what skill and 
breath they had, they set up a choral strain, — “ Hail, 
Columbia!” we believe,—which those old Roman echoes 
must have found it exceeding difficult to repeat aright. 
Even Hilda poured the slender sweetness of her note 
into her country’s song. Miriam was at first silent, 
being perhaps unfamiliar with the air and burden. But, 
suddenly, she threw out such a swell and gush of sound, 
that it seemed to pervade the whole choir of other voices, 
and then to rise above them all, and become audible in 
what would else have been the silence of an upper re¬ 
gion. That volume of melodious voice was one of the 
tokens of a great trouble. There had long been an im¬ 
pulse upon her — amounting, at last, to a necessity — to 
shriek aloud; but she had struggled against it, till the 
thunderous anthem gave her an opportunity to relieve 
her heart by a great cry. 

They passed the solitary column of Phocas, and looked 
down into the excavated space, where a confusion of pil¬ 
lars, arches, pavements, and shattered blocks and shafts 
— the crumbs of various ruin dropped from the devour¬ 
ing maw of Time — stand, or lie, at the base of the 
Capitoline Hill. That renowned hillock (for it is little 
more) now rose abruptly above them. The ponderous 
masonry, with which the hill-side is built up, is as old as 
Rome itself, and looks likely to endure while the world 
retains any substance or permanence. It once sustained 


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE 145 

the Capitol, and now bears up the great pile which the 
mediaeval builders raised on the antique foundation, and 
that still loftier tower, which looks abroad upon a larger 
page, of deeper historic interest, than any other scene 
can show. On the same pedestal of Roman masonry, 
other structures will doubtless rise, and vanish like 
ephemeral things. 

To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the 
events of Roman history, and Roman life itself, appear 
not so distant as the Gothic ages which succeeded them. 
We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the Capitol, 
and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We 
forget that a chasm extends between it and ourselves, 
in which lie all those dark, rude, unlettered centuries, 
around the birth-time of Christianity, as well as the age 
of chivalry and romance, the feudal system, and the 
infancy of a better civilization than that of Rome. Or, 
if we remember these mediaeval times, they look farther 
off than the Augustan age. The reason may be, that 
the old Roman literature survives, and creates for us an 
intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means 
of forming with the subsequent ones. 

The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its rever¬ 
ence, and makes it look newer than it is. Not the Coli¬ 
seum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor the oldest 
pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as 
dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of vener¬ 
able antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from 
the gray walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet 
every brick or stone, which we pick up among the former, 
had fallen, ages before the foundation of the latter was 
begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which 
Nature takes an English ruin to her heart, covering it 
with ivy, as tenderly as Robin Redbreast covered the 
dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make it a 
part of herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of 
man, and supplanting it with her own mosses and trail¬ 
ing verdure, till she has won the whole structure back. 
But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, 
Nature forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never 


146 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


lays her finger on it again. Age after age finds it bare 
and naked, in the barren sunshine, and leaves it so. 
Besides this natural disadvantage, too, each succeeding 
century, in Rome, has done its best to ruin the very 
ruins, so far as their picturesque effect is concerned, by 
stealing away the marble and hewn stone, and leaving 
only yellow bricks, which never can look venerable. 

The party ascended the winding way that leads from 
the Forum to the Piazza of the Campidoglio on the sum¬ 
mit of the Capitoline Hill. They stood awhile to contem¬ 
plate the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. 
The moonlight glistened upon traces of the gilding which 
had once covered both rider and steed; these were al¬ 
most gone, but the aspect of dignity was still perfect, 
clothing the figure as it were with an imperial robe of 
light. It is the most majestic representation of the 
kingly character that ever the world has seen. A sight 
of the old heathen Emperor is enough to create an eva¬ 
nescent sentiment of loyalty even in a democratic bosom, 
so august does he look, so fit to rule, so worthy of man’s 
profoundest homage and obedience, so inevitably attrac¬ 
tive of his love. He stretches forth his hand with an 
air of grand beneficence and unlimited authority, as if 
uttering a decree from which no appeal was permissible, 
but in which the obedient subject would find his highest 
interests consulted; a command that was in itself a 
benediction. 

“ The sculptor of this statue knew what a king should 
be,” observed Kenyon, “ and knew, likewise, the heart 
of mankind, and how it craves a true ruler, under what¬ 
ever title, as a child its father.” 

“ Oh, if there were but one such man as this! ” ex¬ 
claimed Miriam. “ One such man in an age, and one in 
all the world; then how speedily would the strife, wick¬ 
edness, and sorrow of us poor creatures be relieved. We 
would come to him with our griefs, whatever they might 
be, — even a poor, frail woman burdened with her heavy 
heart, — and lay them at his feet and never need to take 
them up again. The rightful king would see to all.” 

“ What an idea of the regal office and duty! ” said 


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE 147 

Kenyon, with a smile. “ It is a woman’s idea of the 
whole matter to perfection. It is Hilda’s, too, no 
doubt ?” 

“No,” answered the quiet Hilda; “I should never 
look for such assistance from an earthly king.” 

“ Hilda, my religious Hilda,” whispered Miriam, sud¬ 
denly drawing the girl close to her, “ do you know how 
it is with me ? I would give all I have or hope — my 
life, oh, how freely — for one instant of your trust in 
God! You little guess my need of it. You really think, 
then, that He sees and cares for us ? ” 

“ Miriam, you frighten me.” 

“ Hush, hush ! do not let them hear you! ” whispered 
Miriam. “ I frighten you, you say; for Heaven’s sake, 
how ? Am I strange ? is there anything wild in my 
behavior ? ” 

“ Only for that moment,” replied Hilda, “because you 
seemed to doubt God’s providence.” 

“ We will talk of that another time,” said her friend. 
“Just now it is very dark to me.” 

On the left of the Piazza of the Campidoglio, as you 
face cityward, and at the head of the long and stately 
flight of steps descending from the Capitoline Hill to the 
level of lower Rome, there is a narrow lane or passage. 
Into this the party of our friends now turned. The path 
ascended a little and ran along under the walls of a pal¬ 
ace, but soon passed through a gateway, and terminated 
in a small paved courtyard. It was bordered by a low 
parapet. 

The spot, for some reason or other, impressed them 
as exceedingly lonely. On one side was the great height 
of the palace, with the moonshine falling over it, and 
showing all the windows barred and shuttered. Not a 
human eye could look down into the little courtyard, 
even if the seemingly deserted palace had a tenant. 
On all other sides of its narrow compass there was 
nothing but the parapet, which as it now appeared was 
built right on the edge of a steep precipice. Gazing 
from its imminent brow, the party beheld a crowded 
confusion of roofs spreading over the whole space be- 


148 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


tween them and the line of hills that lay beyond the 
Tiber. A long, misty wreath, just dense enough to 
catch a little of the moonshine, floated above the houses, 
midway towards the hilly line, and showed the course 
of the unseen river. Far away on the right, the moon 
gleamed on the dome of St. Peter’s as well as on many 
lesser and nearer domes. 

“ What a beautiful view of the city! ” exclaimed 
Hilda ; “ and I never saw Rome from this point 
before.” 

“ It ought to afford a good prospect,” said the sculp¬ 
tor ; “for it was from this point—at least we are at 
liberty to think so, if we choose — that many a famous 
Roman caught his last glimpse of his native city, and 
of all other earthly things. This is one of the sides of 
the Tarpeian Rock. Look over the parapet and see 
what a sheer tumble there might still be for a traitor, in 
spite of the thirty feet of soil that have accumulated at 
the foot of the precipice.” 

They all bent over, and saw that the cliff fell perpen¬ 
dicularly downward to about the depth, or rather more, 
at which the tall palace rose in height above their heads. 
Not that it was still the natural, shaggy front of the 
original precipice ; for it appeared to be cased in ancient 
stone-work, through which the primeval rock showed its 
face here and there grimly and doubtfully. Mosses 
grew on the slight projections, and little shrubs sprouted 
out of the crevices, but could not much soften the stern 
aspect of the cliff. Brightly as the Italian moonlight 
fell a-down the height, it scarcely showed what portion 
of it was man’s work, and what was Nature’s, but left it 
all in very much the same kind of ambiguity and half¬ 
knowledge in which antiquarians generally leave the 
identity of Roman remains. 

The roofs of some poor-looking houses, which had 
been built against the base and sides of the cliff, rose 
nearly midway to the top ; but from an angle of the 
parapet there was a precipitous plunge straight down¬ 
ward into a stone-paved court. 

“ I prefer this to any other site as having been verita- 


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE 149 

bly the Traitor’s Leap,” said Kenyon, “because it was 
so convenient to the Capitol. It was an admirable idea 
of those stern old fellows to fling their political crimi¬ 
nals down from the very summit on which stood the 
Senate House and Jove’s Temple, emblems of the insti¬ 
tutions which they sought to violate. It symbolizes 
how sudden was the fall in those days from the utmost 
height of ambition to its profoundest ruin.” 

“ Come, come; it is midnight,” cried another artist, 
“ too late to be moralizing here. We are literally 
dreaming on the edge of a precipice. Let us go home.” 

“ It is time, indeed,” said Hilda. 

The sculptor was not without hopes that he might be 
favored with the sweet charge of escorting Hilda to the 
foot of her tower. Accordingly, when the party pre¬ 
pared to turn back, he offered her his arm. Hilda at 
first accepted it; but when they had partly threaded 
the passage between the little courtyard and the Piazza 
del Campidoglio, she discovered that Miriam had re¬ 
mained behind. 

“ I must go back,” said she, withdrawing her arm 
from Kenyon’s ; “ but pray do not come with me. Sev¬ 
eral times this evening I have had a fancy that Miriam 
had something on her mind, some sorrow or perplexity, 
which, perhaps, it would relieve her to tell me about. 
No, no ; do not turn back ! Donatello will be a sufficient 
guardian for Miriam and me.” 

The sculptor was a good deal mortified, and perhaps 
a little angry; but he knew Hilda’s mood of gentle de¬ 
cision and independence too well not to obey her. He 
therefore suffered the fearless maiden to return alone. 

Meanwhile, Miriam had not noticed the departure of 
the rest of the company; she remained on the edge of 
the precipice, and Donatello along with her. 

“ It would be a fatal fall, still,” she said to herself, 
looking over the parapet, and shuddering as her eye 
measured the depth. “Yes; surely yes! Even with¬ 
out the weight of an overburdened heart, a human body 
would fall heavily enough upon those stones to shake 
all its joints asunder. How soon it would be over ! ” 


150 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Donatello, of whose presence she was possibly not 
aware, now pressed closer to her side; and he, too, like 
Miriam, bent over the low parapet and trembled vio¬ 
lently. Yet he seemed to feel that perilous fascination 
which haunts the brow of precipices, tempting the un¬ 
wary one to fling himself over for the very horror of the 
thing, for, after drawing hastily back, he again looked 
down, thrusting himself out farther than before. He 
then stood silent a brief space, struggling, perhaps, to 
make himself conscious of the historic associations of 
the scene. 

“ What are you thinking of, Donatello ? ” asked 
Miriam. 

“Who were they,” said he, looking earnestly in her 
face, “ who have been flung over here in days gone by?” 

“ Men that cumbered the world,” she replied. “ Men 
whose lives were the bane of their fellow-creatures. Men 
who poisoned the air, which is the common breath of all, 
for their own selfish purposes. There was short work 
with such men in old Roman times. Just in the mo¬ 
ment of their triumph a hand, as of an avenging giant, 
clutched them, and dashed the wretches down this 
precipice.” 

“ Was it well done ? ” asked the young man. 

“ It was well done,” answered Miriam ; “ innocent 
persons were saved by the destruction of a guilty one, 
who deserved his doom.” 

While this brief conversation passed, Donatello had 
once or twice glanced aside with a watchful air, just as 
a hound may often be seen to take sidelong note of 
some suspicious object, while he gives his more direct 
attention to something nearer at hand. Miriam seemed 
now first to become aware of the silence that had fol¬ 
lowed upon the cheerful talk and laughter of a few 
moments before. Looking round, she perceived that all 
her company of merry friends had retired, and Hilda, 
too, in whose soft and quiet presence she had always an 
indescribable feeling of security. All gone ; and only 
herself and Donatello left hanging over the brow of the 
ominous precipice. 


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE 151 

Not so, however; not entirely alone! In the base¬ 
ment wall of the palace, shaded from the moon, there 
was a deep, empty niche, that had probably once con¬ 
tained a statue; not empty, either; for a figure now came 
forth from it and approached Miriam. She must have 
had cause to dread some unspeakable evil from this 
strange persecutor, and to know that this was the very 
crisis of her calamity; for, as he drew near, such a cold, 
sick despair crept over her, that it impeded her breath, 
and benumbed her natural promptitude of thought. 
Miriam seemed dreamily to remember falling on her 
knees ; but, in her whole recollection of that wild mo¬ 
ment, she beheld herself as in a dim show, and could 
not well distinguish what was done and suffered ; no, 
not even whether she were really an actor and sufferer 
in the scene. 

Hilda, meanwhile, had separated herself from the 
sculptor, and turned back to rejoin her friend. At a 
distance, she still heard the mirth of her late companions, 
who were going down the cityward descent of the Capito- 
line Hill; they had set up a new stave of melody, in 
which her own soft voice, as well as the powerful sweet¬ 
ness of Miriam’s, was sadly missed. 

The door of the little courtyard had swung upon its 
hinges, and partly closed itself. Hilda (whose native 
gentleness pervaded all her movements) was quietly 
opening it, when she was startled, midway, by the noise 
of a struggle within, beginning and ending all in one 
breathless instant. Along with it, or closely succeeding 
it, was a loud, fearful cry, which quivered upward 
through the air, and sank quivering downward to the 
earth. Then, a silence! Poor Hilda had looked into 
the courtyard, and saw the whole quick passage of a 
deed, which took but that little time to grave itself in 
the eternal adamant. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION 

T HE door of the courtyard swung slowly, and closed 
itself of its own accord. Miriam and Donatello 
were now alone there. She clasped her hands, and 
looked wildly at the young man, whose form seemed to 
have dilated, and whose eyes blazed with the fierce 
energy that had suddenly inspired him. It had kindled 
him into a man; it had developed within him an intelli¬ 
gence which was no native characteristic of the Dona¬ 
tello whom we have heretofore known. But that simple 
and joyous creature was gone forever. 

“ What have you done ? ” said Miriam, in a horror- 
stricken whisper. 

The glow of rage was still lurid on Donatello’s face, 
and now flashed out again from his eyes. 

“ I did what ought to be done to a traitor! ” he re¬ 
plied. “ I did what your eyes bade me do, when I asked 
them with mine, as I held the wretch over the precipice!” 

These last words struck Miriam like a bullet. Could it 
be so ? Had her eyes provoked or assented to this deed ? 
She had not known it. But, alas! looking back into 
the frenzy and turmoil of the scene just acted, she could 
not deny—she was not sure whether it might be so, or 
no — that a wild joy had flamed up in her heart, when 
she beheld her persecutor in his mortal peril. Was it 
horror ? — or ecstasy ? — or both in one ? Be the emo¬ 
tion what it might, it had blazed up more madly, when 
Donatello flung his victim off the cliff, and more and 
more, while his shriek went quivering downward. With 
the dead thump upon the stones below had come an 
unutterable horror. 

“ And my eyes bade you do it! ” repeated she. 

J S2 


THE FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION 153 

They both leaned over the parapet, and gazed down¬ 
ward as earnestly as if some inestimable treasure had 
fallen over, and were yet recoverable. On the pave¬ 
ment below was a dark mass, lying in a heap, with 
little or nothing human in its appearance, except that 
the hands were stretched out, as if they might have 
clutched, for a moment, at the small square stones. 
But there was no motion in them, now. Miriam watched 
the heap of mortality while she could count a hundred, 
which she took pains to do. No stir; not a finger 
moved! 

“ You have killed him, Donatello ! He is quite dead! ” 
said she. “ Stone dead ! Would I were so, too ! ” 

“ Did you not mean that he should die ? ” sternly 
asked Donatello, still in the glow of that intelligence 
which passion had developed in him. “ There was short 
time to weigh the matter; but he had his trial in that 
breath or two while I held him over the cliff, and his 
sentence in that one glance, when your eyes responded 
to mine! Say that I have slain him against your will 
— say that he died without your whole consent — and, 
in another breath, you shall see me lying beside him.” 

“ Oh, never! ” cried Miriam. “ My one, own friend ! 
Never, never, never! ” 

She turned to him — the guilty, blood-stained, lonely 
woman — she turned to her fellow-criminal, the youth, 
so lately innocent, whom she had drawn into her doom. 
She pressed him close, close to her bosom, with a cling¬ 
ing embrace that brought their two hearts together, till 
the horror and agony of each was combined into one 
emotion, and that, a kind of rapture. 

“Yes, Donatello, you speak the truth!” said she; 
“my heart consented to what you did. We two slew 
yonder wretch. The deed knots us together for time 
and eternity, like the coil of a serpent! ” 

They threw one other glance at the heap of death 
below, to assure themselves that it was there; so like a 
dream was the whole thing. Then they turned from 
that fatal precipice, and came out of the courtyard, arm 
in arm, heart in heart. Instinctively they were heedful 


*54 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


not to sever themselves so much as a pace or two from 
one another, for fear of the terror and deadly chill that 
would thenceforth wait for them in solitude. Their deed 
— the crime which Donatello wrought, and Miriam ac¬ 
cepted on the instant — had wreathed itself, as she said, 
like a serpent, in inextricable links about both their souls, 
and drew them into one, by its terrible contractile power. 
It was closer than a marriage-bond. So intimate, in 
those first moments, was the union, that it seemed as if 
their new sympathy annihilated all other ties, and that 
they were released from the chain of humanity; a new 
sphere, a special law, had been created for them alone. 
The world could not come near them; they were safe! 

When they reached the flight of steps, leading down¬ 
ward from the Capitol, there was a far-off noise of sing¬ 
ing and laughter. Swift, indeed, had been the rush of 
the crisis that was come and gone! This was still the 
merriment of the party that had so recently been their 
companions; they recognized the voices which, a little 
while ago, had accorded and sung in cadence with their 
own. But they were familiar voices no more; they 
sounded strangely, and, as it were, out of the depths of 
space; so remote was all that pertained to the past life 
of these guilty ones, in the moral seclusion that had sud¬ 
denly extended itself around them. But how close, and 
ever closer, did the breadth of the immeasurable waste, 
that lay between them and all brotherhood or sisterhood, 
now press them one within the other! 

“ Oh, friend,” cried Miriam, so putting her soul into 
that word that it took a heavy richness of meaning, and 
seemed never to have been spoken before. “ Oh, friend, 
are you conscious, as I am, of this companionship that 
knits our heart-strings together ? ” 

“I feel it, Miriam,” said Donatello. “We draw one 
breath ; we live one life ! ” 

“ Only yesterday,” continued Miriam; “ nay, only a 
short half-hour ago, I shivered in an icy solitude. No 
friendship, no sisterhood, could come near enough to 
keep the warmth within my heart. In an instant, all is 
changed! There can be no more loneliness! ” 


THE FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION 155 

“ None, Miriam ! ” said Donatello. 

“None, my beautiful one!” responded Miriam, gaz¬ 
ing in his face, which had taken a higher, almost an 
heroic aspect from the strength of passion. “ None, my 
innocent one! Surely, it is no crime that we have com¬ 
mitted. One wretched and worthless life has been sac¬ 
rificed, to cement two other lives forevermore.” 

“Forevermore, Miriam!” said Donatello; “cemented 
with his blood ! ” 

The young man started at the word which he had 
himself spoken; it may be that it brought home, to the 
simplicity of his imagination, what he had not before 
dreamed of — the ever-increasing loathsomeness of a 
union that consists in guilt. Cemented with blood, 
which would corrupt and grow more noisome forever and 
forever, but bind them none the less strictly for that! 

“Forget it! Cast it all behind you!” said Miriam, 
detecting, by her sympathy, the pang that was in his 
heart. “ The deed has done its office, and has no exist¬ 
ence any more.” 

They flung the past behind them, as she counselled, 
or else distilled from it a fiery intoxication, which sufficed 
to carry them triumphantly through those first moments 
of their doom. For, guilt has its moment of rapture too. 
The foremost result of a broken law is ever an ecstatic 
sense of freedom. And thus there exhaled upward (out 
of their dark sympathy, at the base of which lay a human 
corpse) a bliss, or an insanity, which the unhappy pair 
imagined to be well worth the sleepy innocence that was 
forever lost to them. 

As their spirits rose to the solemn madness of the 
occasion, they went onward — not stealthily, not fear¬ 
fully — but with a stately gait and aspect. Passion lent 
them (as it does to meaner shapes) its brief nobility of 
carriage. They trod through the streets of Rome, as if 
they, too, were among the majestic and guilty shadows, 
that, from ages long gone by, have haunted the blood¬ 
stained city. And, at Miriam’s suggestion, they turned 
aside, for the sake of treading loftily past the old site of 
Pompey’s forum. 


156 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ For there was a great deed done here ! ” she said — 
“ a deed of blood, like ours! Who knows, but we may 
meet the high and ever-sad fraternity of Caesar’s mur¬ 
derers, and exchange a salutation ? ” 

“Are they our brethren, now ? ” asked Donatello. 

“Yes; all of them,” said Miriam; “and many an¬ 
other, whom the world little dreams of, has been made 
our brother or our sister, by what we have done within 
this hour! ” 

And, at the thought, she shivered. Where, then, was 
the seclusion, the remoteness, the strange, lonesome Para¬ 
dise, into which she and her one companion had been 
transported by their crime ? Was there, indeed, no such 
refuge, but only a crowded thoroughfare and jostling 
throng of criminals ? And was it true, that whatever 
hand had blood-stain on it — or had poured out poison 

— or strangled a babe at its birth — or clutched a grand- 
sire’s throat, he sleeping, and robbed him of his few last 
breaths — had now the right to offer itself in fellowship 
with their two hands ? Too certainly that right existed. 
It is a terrible thought, that an individual wrong-doing 
melts into the great mass of human crime, and makes us 

— who dreamed only of our own little separate sin — 
makes us guilty of the whole. And thus Miriam and 
her lover were not an insulated pair, but members of an 
innumerable confraternity of guilty ones, all shuddering 
at each other. 

“ But not now ; not yet,” she murmured to herself. 
“To-night, at least, there shall be no remorse! ” 

Wandering without a purpose, it so chanced that they 
turned into a street, at one extremity of which stood 
Hilda’s tower. There was a light in her high chamber; 
a light, too, at the Virgin’s shrine; and the glimmer 
of these two was the loftiest light beneath the stars. 
Miriam drew Donatello’s arm to make him stop, and 
while they stood at some distance looking at Hilda’s 
window, they beheld her approach and throw it open. 
She leaned far forth, and extended her clasped hands 
towards the sky. 

“ The good, pure child ! She is praying, Donatello,” 


THE FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION 157 


said Miriam, with a kind of simple joy at witnessing the 
devoutness of her friend. Then her own sin rushed upon 
her, and she shouted, with the rich strength of her voice, 
“ Pray for us, Hilda ; we need it! ” 

Whether Hilda heard and recognized the voice we 
cannot tell. The window was immediately closed, and 
her form disappeared from behind the snowy curtain. 
Miriam felt this to be a token that the cry of her con¬ 
demned spirit was shut out of heaven. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE BURIAL CHANT 


HE Church of the Capuchins (where, as the reader 



i may remember, some of our acquaintances had 
made an engagement to meet) stands a little aside from 
the Piazza Barberini. Thither, at the hour agreed upon 
on the morning after the scenes last described, Miriam 
and Donatello directed their steps. At no time are 
people so sedulously careful to keep their trifling ap¬ 
pointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and 
thus put a commonplace aspect on life, as when con¬ 
scious of some secret that if suspected would make them 
look monstrous in the general eye. 

Yet how tame and wearisome is the impression of all 
ordinary things in the contrast with such a fact! How 
sick and tremulous, the next morning, is the spirit that 
has dared so much, only the night before! How icy 
cold is the heart, when the fervor, the wild ecstasy of 
passion has faded away, and sunk down among the dead 
ashes of the fire that blazed so fiercely, and was fed by 
the very substance of its life ! How faintly does the 
criminal stagger onward, lacking the impulse of that 
strong madness that hurried him into guilt, and treach¬ 
erously deserts him in the midst of it! 

When Miriam and Donatello drew near the church, 
they found only Kenyon awaiting them on the steps. 
Hilda had likewise promised to be of the party, but had 
not yet appeared. Meeting the sculptor, Miriam put a 
force upon herself and succeeded in creating an artificial 
flow of spirits, which to any but the nicest observation 
was quite as effective as a natural one. She spoke sym- 
pathizingly to the sculptor on the subject of Hilda’s 
absence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding in 


158 


THE BURIAL CHANT 


l 59 


Donatello’s hearing to an attachment which had never 
been openly avowed, though perhaps plainly enough 
betrayed. He fancied that Miriam did not quite recog¬ 
nize the limits of the strictest delicacy; he even went so 
far as to generalize, and conclude within himself that 
this deficiency is a more general failing in woman than 
in man, the highest refinement being a masculine attri¬ 
bute. 

But the idea was unjust to the sex at large, and espe¬ 
cially so to this poor Miriam, who was hardly responsible 
for her frantic efforts to be gay. Possibly, moreover, 
the nice action of the mind is set ajar by any violent 
shock as of great misfortune or great crime, so that the 
finer perceptions may be blurred thenceforth, and the 
effect be traceable in all the minutest conduct of life. 

“ Did you see anything of the dear child after you 
left us ? ” asked Miriam, still keeping Hilda as her 
topic of conversation. “ I missed her sadly on my way 
homeward; for nothing insures me such delightful and 
innocent dreams (I have experienced it twenty times) as 
a talk late in the evening with Hilda.” 

“ So I should imagine,” said the sculptor, gravely; 
“ but it is an advantage that I have little or no oppor¬ 
tunity of enjoying. I know not what became of Hilda 
after my parting from you. She was not especially my 
companion in any part of our walk. The last I saw of 
her she was hastening back to rejoin you in the court¬ 
yard of the Palazzo Caffarelli.” 

“ Impossible ! ” cried Miriam, starting. 

“Then did you not see her again?” inquired Kenyon, 
in some alarm. 

“Not there,” answered Miriam, quietly; “indeed, I 
followed pretty closely on the heels of the rest of the 
party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda’s account; the 
Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sake 
of the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her 
shrine. And, besides, I have always felt that Hilda is 
just as safe in these evil streets of Rome as her white 
doves when they fly downwards from the tower-top, and 
run to and fro among the horses’ feet. There is cer- 


160 THE MARBLE FAUN 

tainly a providence or purpose for Hilda, if for no other 
human creature.” 

“ I religiously believe it,” rejoined the sculptor; “ and 
yet my mind would be the easier, if I knew that she had 
returned safely to her tower.” 

“ Then make yourself quite easy,” answered Miriam. 
“ I saw her (and it is the last sweet sight that I remem¬ 
ber) leaning from her window midway between earth 
and sky! ” 

Kenyon now looked at Donatello. 

“You seem out of spirits, my dear friend,” he ob¬ 
served. “ This languid Roman atmosphere is not the 
airy wine that you were accustomed to breathe at home. 
I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation to meet 
you this summer at your castle among the Apennines. 
It is my fixed purpose to come, I assure you. We shall 
both be the better for some deep draughts of the moun¬ 
tain-breezes.” 

“ It may be,” said Donatello, with unwonted sombre¬ 
ness; “the old house seemed joyous when I was a child. 
But as I remember it now it was a grim place, too.” 

The sculptor looked more attentively at the young 
man, and was surprised and alarmed to observe how 
entirely the fine, fresh glow of animal spirits had de¬ 
parted out of his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while 
he was standing perfectly still, there had been a kind of 
possible gambol indicated in his aspect. It was quite 
gone now. All his youthful gayety, and with it his sim¬ 
plicity of manner, was eclipsed, if not utterly extinct. 

“You are surely ill, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Ken¬ 
yon. 

“ Am I ? Perhaps so,” said Donatello, indifferently; 
“ I never have been ill, and know not what it may be.” 

“ Do not make the poor lad fancy-sick,” whispered 
Miriam, pulling the sculptor’s sleeve. “ He is of a 
nature to lie down and die at once if he finds himself 
drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people 
are enforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must 
get him away from this old, dreamy, and dreary Rome, 
where nobody but himself ever thought of being gay. 


THE BURIAL CHANT 161 

Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a 
creature.” 

The above conversation had passed chiefly on the 
steps of the Cappuccini; and, having said so much, 
Miriam lifted the leathern curtain that hangs before 
all church doors in Italy. 

“ Hilda has forgotten her appointment,” she observed, 
“ or else her maiden slumbers are very sound this morn¬ 
ing. We will wait for her no longer.” 

They entered the nave. The interior of the church 
was of moderate compass, but of good architecture, with 
a vaulted roof over the nave, and a row of dusky chapels 
on either side of it instead of the customary side-aisles. 
Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with offer¬ 
ings ; its picture above the altar, although closely veiled, 
if by any painter of renown; and its hallowed tapers, 
burning continually, to set alight the devotion of the 
worshippers. The pavement of the nave was chiefly of 
marble, and looked old and broken, and was shabbily 
patched here and there with tiles of brick; it was inlaid, 
moreover, with tombstones of the mediaeval taste, on 
which were quaintly sculptured borders, figures, and por¬ 
traits in bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, now grown illegi¬ 
ble by the tread of footsteps over them. The church 
appertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; and, as 
usually happens when a reverend brotherhood have such 
an edifice in charge, the floor seemed never to have been 
scrubbed or swept, and had as little the aspect of sanc¬ 
tity as a kennel; whereas, in all churches of nunneries, 
the maiden sisterhood invariably show the purity of their 
own hearts by the virgin cleanliness and visible conse¬ 
cration of the walls and pavement. 

As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at 
once on a remarkable object in the centre of the nave. 
It was either the actual body, or, as might rather have 
been supposed at first glance, the cunningly wrought 
waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk. 
This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it 
might be, lay on a slightly elevated bier, with three tall 
candles burning on each side, another tall candle at the 


i 62 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


head, and another at the foot. There was music, too, in 
harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneath the 
pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain 
of a De Profundis , which sounded like an utterance of 
the tomb itself; so dismally did it rumble through the 
burial-vaults, and ooze up among the flat gravestones 
and sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy mist. 

“ I must look more closely at that dead monk before 
we leave the church,” remarked the sculptor. “ In the 
study of my art, I have gained many a hint from the 
dead, which the living could never have given me.” 

“ I can well imagine it,” answered Miriam. “ One 
clay image is readily copied from another. But let us 
first see Guido’s picture. The light is favorable now.” 

Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the 
right hand, as you enter the nave ; and there they beheld 
— not the picture, indeed — but a closely drawn curtain. 
The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of sacrificing 
the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been 
created; that of opening the way for religious sentiment 
through the quick medium of sight, by bringing angels, 
saints, and martyrs, down visibly upon earth; of sacri¬ 
ficing this high purpose, and, for aught they know, the 
welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a 
paltry fee. Every work by an artist of celebrity is hid¬ 
den behind a veil, and seldom revealed, except to Prot¬ 
estants, who scorn it as an object of devotion, and value 
it only for its artistic merit. 

The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no 
time in disclosing the youthful Archangel, setting his 
divine foot on the head of his fallen adversary. It was 
an image of that greatest of future events, which we 
hope for so ardently, — at least, while we are young, — 
but find so very long in coming, — the triumph of good¬ 
ness over the evil principle. 

“Where can Hilda be?” exclaimed Kenyon. “It is 
not her custom ever to fail in an engagement; and the 
present one was made entirely on her account. Except 
herself, you know, we were all agreed in our recollection 
of the picture.” 



MICHAEL, THE ARCHANGEL. 

From the painting by Guido, in the Church of the Capuchins 

















THE BURIAL CHANT 


l &3 

“ But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you per¬ 
ceive,’’ said Miriam, directing his attention to the point 
on which their dispute of the night before had arisen. 
“It is not easy to detect her astray, as regards any 
picture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have 
ever rested.” 

“ And she has studied and admired few pictures so 
much as this,” observed the sculptor. “ No wonder; for 
there is hardly another so beautiful in the world. What 
an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel’s 
face ! There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at 
being brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose 
of quelling and punishing it; and yet a celestial tran¬ 
quillity pervades his whole being.” 

“ I have never been able,” said Miriam, “ to admire 
this picture nearly so much as Hilda does, in its moral 
and intellectual aspect. If it cost her more trouble to be 
good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would be 
a more competent critic of this picture, and would esti¬ 
mate it not half so high. I see its defects to-day more 
clearly than ever before.” 

“ What are some of them ? ” asked Kenyon. 

“ That Archangel, now,” Miriam continued; “ how fair 
he looks, with his unruffled wings, with his unhacked 
sword, and clad in his bright armor, and that exquisitely 
fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest Paradisiacal mode ! 
What a dainty air of the first celestial society! With 
what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled 
foot on the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus 
that virtue looks, the moment after its death-struggle 
with evil? No, no; I could have told Guido better. A 
full third of the Archangel’s feathers should have been 
torn from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked 
like Satan’s own! His sword should be streaming with 
blood, and perhaps broken half way to the hilt; his 
armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; a bleed¬ 
ing gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl 
of battle! He should press his foot hard down upon 
the old serpent, as if his very soul depended upon it, 
feeling him squirm mightily, and doubting whether the 


164 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


fight were half over yet, and how the victory might 
turn! And, with all this fierceness, this grimness, this 
unutterable horror, there should still be something high, 
tender, and holy, in Michael’s eyes, and around his 
mouth. But the battle never was such child’s play as 
Guido’s dapper Archangel seems to have found it.” 

“ For Heaven’s sake, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, aston¬ 
ished at the wild energy of her talk ; “ paint the picture 
of man’s struggle against sin according to your own 
idea! I think it will be a masterpiece.” 

“ The picture would have its share of truth, I assure 
you,” she answered; “ but I am sadly afraid the victory 
would fall on the wrong side. Just fancy a smoke-black¬ 
ened, fiery-eyed demon, bestriding that nice young angel, 
clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws; 
and giving a triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a 
poisonous dart at the end of it! That is what they risk, 
poor souls, who do battle with Michael’s enemy.” 

It now, perhaps, struck Miriam that her mental dis¬ 
quietude was impelling her to an undue vivacity; for 
she paused, and turned away from the picture, without 
saying a word more about it. All this while, moreover, 
Donatello had been very ill at ease, casting awe-stricken 
and inquiring glances at the dead monk; as if he could 
look nowhere but at that ghastly object, merely because 
it shocked him. Death has probably a peculiar horror 
and ugliness, when forced upon the contemplation of a 
person so naturally joyous as Donatello, who lived with 
completeness in the present moment, and was able to 
form but vague images of the future. 

“ What is the matter, Donatello ? ” whispered Miriam, 
soothingly. “You are quite in a tremble, my poor 
friend ! What is it ? ” 

“ This awful chant from beneath the church,” an¬ 
swered Donatello ; “ it oppresses me ; the air is so heavy 
with it that I can scarcely draw my breath. And yonder 
dead monk! I feel as if he were lying right across my 
heart.” 

“Take courage!” whispered she again, “come; we 
will approach close to the dead monk. The only way, 


THE BURIAL CHANT 165 

in such cases, is to stare the ugly horror right in the 
face ; never a side-long glance, nor a half-look, for those 
are what show a frightful thing in its frightfullest aspect. 
Lean on me, dearest friend ! My heart is very strong for 
both of us. Be brave ; and all is well.” 

Donatello hung back for a moment, but then pressed 
close to Miriam’s side, and suffered her to lead him up 
to the bier. The sculptor followed. A number of per¬ 
sons, chiefly women, with several children among them, 
were standing about the corpse ; and as our three friends 
drew nigh, a mother knelt down, and caused her little 
boy to kneel, both kissing the beads and crucifix that 
hung from the monk’s girdle. Possibly he had died in 
the odor of sanctity; or, at all events, death and his 
brown frock and cowl made a sacred image of this 
reverend father. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE DEAD CAPUCHIN 


HE dead monk was clad, as when alive, in the 



i brown woollen frock of the Capuchins, with the 
hood drawn over his head, but so as to leave the features 
and a portion of the beard uncovered. His rosary and 
cross hung at his side; his hands were folded over his 
breast; his feet (he was of a bare-footed order in his life¬ 
time, and continued so in death) protruded from beneath 
his habit, stiff and stark, with a more waxen look than 
even his face. They were tied together at the ankles 
with a black ribbon. 

The countenance, as we have already said, was fully 
displayed. It had a purplish hue upon it, unlike the 
paleness of an ordinary corpse, but as little resembling 
the flush of natural life. The eyelids were but partially 
drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath; as if the 
deceased friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders, 
to watch whether they were duly impressed with the 
solemnity of his obsequies. The shaggy eyebrows gave 
sternness to the look. 

Miriam passed between two of the lighted candles, 
and stood close beside the bier. 

“ My God ! ” murmured she. “ What is this ? ” 

She grasped Donatello’s hand, and, at the same in¬ 
stant, felt him give a convulsive shudder, which she 
knew to have been caused by a sudden and terrible 
throb of the heart. His hand, by an instantaneous 
change, became like ice within hers, which likewise 
grew so icy, that their insensible fingers might have 
rattled, one against the other. No wonder that their 
blood curdled; no wonder that their hearts leaped and 
paused ! The dead face of the monk, gazing at them 
beneath its half-closed eyelids, was the same visage that 


166 


THE DEAD CAPUCHIN 


167 

had glared upon their naked souls, the past midnight, as 
Donatello flung him over the precipice. 

The sculptor was standing at the foot of the bier, and 
had not yet seen the monk’s features. 

“ Those naked feet! ” said he. “ I know not why, 
but they affect me strangely. They have walked to and 
fro over the hard pavements of Rome, and through a 
hundred other rough ways of this life, where the monk 
went begging for his brotherhood; along the cloisters 
and dreary corridors of his convent, too, from his youth 
upward! It is a suggestive idea to track those worn 
feet backward through all the paths they have trodden, 
ever since they were the tender and rosy little feet of a 
baby, and (cold as they now are) were kept warm in his 
mother’s hand.” 

As his companions, whom the sculptor supposed to be 
close by him, made no response to his fanciful musing, 
he looked up and saw them at the head of the bier. He 
advanced thither himself. 

“ Ha ! ” exclaimed he. 

He cast a horror-stricken and bewildered glance at 
Miriam, but withdrew it immediately. Not that he had 
any definite suspicion, or, it may be, even a remote idea, 
that she could be held responsible, in the least degree, 
for this man’s sudden death. In truth, it seemed too 
wild a thought to connect, in reality, Miriam’s persecu¬ 
tor of many past months and the vagabond of the pre¬ 
ceding night with the dead Capuchin of to-day. It 
resembled one of those unaccountable changes and 
interminglings of identity, which so often occur among 
the personages of a dream. But Kenyon, as befitted 
the professor of an imaginative art, was endowed with 
an exceedingly quick sensibility, which was apt to give 
him intimations of the true state of matters that lay 
beyond his actual vision. There was a whisper in his 
ear ; it said, “ Hush ! ” Without asking himself where¬ 
fore, he resolved to be silent as regarded the mysterious 
discovery which he had made, and to leave any remark 
or exclamation to be voluntarily offered by Miriam. If 
she never spoke, then let the riddle be unsolved. 


168 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


And now occurred a circumstance that would seem 
too fantastic to be told, if it had not actually happened, 
precisely as we set it down. As the three friends stood 
by the bier, they saw that a little stream of blood had 
begun to ooze from the dead monk’s nostrils; it crept 
slowly towards the thicket of his beard, where, in the 
course of a moment or two, it hid itself. 

“ How strange!” ejaculated Kenyon. “The monk 
died of apoplexy, I suppose, or by some sudden acci¬ 
dent, and the blood has not yet congealed.” 

“ Do you consider that a sufficient explanation ? ” 
asked Miriam, with a smile from which the sculptor 
involuntarily turned away his eyes. “ Does it satisfy 
you ? ” 

“ And why not ? ” he inquired. 

“ Of course, you know the old superstition about this 
phenomenon of blood flowing from a dead body,” she 
rejoined. “ How can we tell but that the murderer of 
this monk (or, possibly, it may be only that privileged 
murderer, his physician) may have just entered the 
church ? ” 

“ I cannot jest about it,” said Kenyon. “ It is an 
ugly sight! ” 

“ True, true; horrible to see, or dream of! ” she re¬ 
plied, with one of those long, tremulous sighs, which so 
often betray a sick heart by escaping unexpectedly. 
“ We will not look at it any more. Come away, Dona¬ 
tello. Let us escape from this dismal church. The 
sunshine will do you good.” 

When had ever a woman such a trial to sustain as 
this ! By no possible supposition could Miriam explain 
the identity of the dead Capuchin, quietly and deco¬ 
rously laid out in the nave of his convent church, with 
that of her murdered persecutor, flung heedlessly at the 
foot of the precipice. The effect upon her imagination 
was as if a strange and unknown corpse had miracu¬ 
lously, while she was gazing at it, assumed the likeness 
of that face, so terrible henceforth in her remembrance. 
It was a symbol, perhaps, of the deadly iteration with 
which she was doomed to behold the image of her crime 


THE DEAD CAPUCHIN 


169 


reflected back upon her in a thousand ways, and con¬ 
verting the great, calm face of Nature, in the whole, 
and in its innumerable details, into a manifold reminis¬ 
cence of that one dead visage. 

No sooner had Miriam turned away from the bier, 
and gone a few steps, than she fancied the likeness 
altogether an illusion, which would vanish at a closer 
and colder view. She must look at it again, therefore, 
and at once; or else the grave would close over the 
face, and leave the awful fantasy that had connected 
itself therewith, fixed ineffaceably in her brain. 

“Wait forme, one moment!” she said to her com¬ 
panions. “ Only a moment! ” 

So she went back, and gazed once more at the corpse. 
Yes; these were the features that Miriam had known 
so well; this was the visage that she remembered from 
a far longer date than the most intimate of her friends 
suspected; this form of clay had held the evil spirit 
which blasted her sweet youth, and compelled her, as it 
were, to stain her womanhood with crime. But, whether 
it were the majesty of death, or something originally 
noble and lofty in the character of the dead, which the 
soul had stamped upon the features as it left them; so 
it was that Miriam now quailed and shook, not for the 
vulgar horror of the spectacle, but for the severe, re¬ 
proachful glance that seemed to come from between 
those half-closed lids. True, there had been nothing, 
in his lifetime, viler than this man. She knew it; 
there was no other fact within her consciousness that 
she felt to be so certain; and yet, because her perse¬ 
cutor found himself safe and irrefutable in death, he 
frowned upon his victim, and threw back the blame on 
her! 

“ Is it thou, indeed ? ” she murmured under her 
breath. “ Then thou hast no right to scowl upon me 
so ! But art thou real, or a vision ? ” 

She bent down over the dead monk, till one of her 
rich curls brushed against his forehead. She touched 
one of his folded hands with her finger. 

“ It is he ! ” said Miriam. “ There is the scar that I 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


170 

know so well'on his brow. And it is no vision; he is 
palpable to my touch! I will question the fact no 
longer, but deal with it as I best can.” 

It was wonderful to see how the crisis developed in 
Miriam its own proper strength, and the faculty of sus¬ 
taining the demands which it made upon her fortitude. 
She ceased to tremble; the beautiful woman gazed 
sternly at her dead enemy, endeavoring to meet and 
quell the look of accusation that he threw from between 
his half-closed eyelids. 

“ No; thou shalt not scowl me down! ” said she. 
“ Neither now, nor when we stand together at the judg¬ 
ment-seat. I fear not to meet thee there. Farewell, 
till that next encounter ! ” 

Haughtily waving her hand, Miriam rejoined her 
friends, who were awaiting her at the door of the 
church. As they went out, the sacristan stopped them, 
and proposed to show the cemetery of the convent, 
where the deceased members of the fraternity are 
laid to rest in sacred earth, brought long ago from 
Jerusalem. 

“ And will yonder monk be buried there ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Brother Antonio ? ” exclaimed the sacristan. “ Surely, 
our good brother will be put to bed there! His grave 
is already dug, and the last occupant has made room 
for him. Will you look at it, signorina ? ” 

“ I will ! ” said Miriam. 

“ Then excuse me,” observed Kenyon; “ for I shall 
leave you. One dead monk has more than sufficed me ; 
and I am not bold enough to face the whole mortality of 
the convent.” 

It was easy to see, by Donatello’s looks, that he, as 
well as the sculptor, would gladly have escaped a visit 
to the famous cemetery of the Cappuccini. But Mir¬ 
iam’s nerves were strained to such a pitch, that she 
anticipated a certain solace and absolute relief in pass¬ 
ing from one ghastly spectacle to another of long-accu¬ 
mulated ugliness ; and there was, besides, a singular 
sense of duty which impelled her to look at the final 


THE DEAD CAPUCHIN 


I 7 I 

resting-place of the being whose fate had been so disas¬ 
trously involved with her own. She therefore followed 
the sacristan’s guidance, and drew her companion along 
with her, whispering encouragement as they went. 

The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely 
above ground, and lighted by a row of iron-grated win¬ 
dows without glass. A corridor runs along beside these 
windows, and gives access to three or four vaulted 
recesses, or chapels, of considerable breadth and height, 
the floor of which consists of the consecrated earth of 
Jerusalem. It is smoothed decorously over the deceased 
brethren of the convent, and is kept quite free from 
grass or weeds, such as would grow even in these 
gloomy recesses, if pains were not bestowed to root 
them up. But, as the cemetery is small, and it is a 
precious privilege to sleep in holy ground, the brother¬ 
hood are immemorially accustomed, when one of their 
number dies, to take the longest-buried skeleton out of 
the oldest grave, and lay the new slumberer there 
instead. Thus, each of the good friars, in his turn, 
enjoys the luxury of a consecrated bed, attended with 
the slight drawback of being forced to get up long 
before daybreak, as it were, and make room for another 
lodger. 

The arrangement of the unearthed skeletons is what 
makes the special interest of the cemetery. The arched 
and vaulted walls of the burial recesses are supported 
by massive pillars and pilasters made of thigh-bones 
and skulls; the whole material of the structure appears 
to be of a similar kind; and the knobs and embossed 
ornaments of this strange architecture are represented 
by the joints of the spine, and the more delicate tracery 
by the smaller bones of the human frame. The sum¬ 
mits of the arches are adorned with entire skeletons 
looking as if they were wrought most skilfully in bas- 
relief. There is no possibility of describing how ugly 
and grotesque is the effect, combined with a certain 
artistic merit, nor how much perverted ingenuity has 
been shown in this queer way, nor what a multitude of 
dead monks, through how many hundred years, must 


172 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


have contributed their bony framework to build up 
these great arches of mortality. On some of the skulls 
there are inscriptions, purporting that such a monk, 
who formerly made use of that particular headpiece, 
died on such a day and year; but vastly the greater 
number are piled up indistinguishably into the architec¬ 
tural design like the many deaths that make up the one 
glory of a victory. 

In the side walls of the vaults are niches where skele¬ 
ton monks sit or stand, clad in the brown habits that 
they wore in life, and labelled with their names and the 
dates of their decease. Their skulls (some quite bare, 
and others still covered with yellow skin, and hair that 
has known the earth-damps) look out from beneath their 
hoods, grinning hideously repulsive. One reverend 
father has his mouth wide open, as if he had died in the 
midst of a howl of terror and remorse, which perhaps 
is even now screeching through eternity. As a general 
thing, however, these frocked and hooded skeletons 
seem to take a more cheerful view of their position, and 
try with ghastly smiles to turn it into a jest. But the 
cemetery of the Capuchins is no place to nourish celes¬ 
tial hopes: the soul sinks forlorn and wretched under 
all this burden of dusty death: the holy earth from 
Jerusalem, so imbued is it with mortality, has grown as 
barren of the flowers of Paradise as it is of earthly 
weeds and grass. Thank Heaven for its blue sky; it 
needs a long, upward gaze to give us back our faith. 
Not here can we feel ourselves immortal, where the 
very altars in these chapels of horrible consecration are 
heaps of human bones. 

Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves. 
There is no disagreeable scent, such as might have been 
expected from the decay of so many holy persons, in 
whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken their 
departure. The same number of living monks would 
not smell half so unexceptionably. 

Miriam went gloomily along the corridor, from one 
vaulted Golgotha to another, until in the farthest recess 
she beheld an open grave. 


THE DEAD CAPUCHIN 


i73 

“ Is that for him who lies yonder in the nave ? ” she 
asked. 

“Yes, signorina, this is to be the resting-place of 
brother Antonio, who came to his death last night,” 
answered the sacristan ; “ and in yonder niche, you see, 
sits a brother who was buried thirty years ago, and has 
risen to give him place.” 

“ It is not a satisfactory idea,” observed Miriam, “ that 
you poor friars cannot call even your graves permanently 
your own. You must lie down in them, methinks, with 
a nervous anticipation of being disturbed, like weary 
men who know that they shall be summoned out of bed 
at midnight. Is it not possible (if money were to be 
paid for the privilege) to leave brother Antonio — if 
that be his name — in the occupancy of that narrow 
grave till the last trumpet sounds ? ” 

“ By no means, signorina; neither is it needful or 
desirable,” answered the sacristan. “A quarter of a 
century’s sleep in the sweet earth of Jerusalem is better 
than a thousand years in any other soil. Our brethren 
find good rest there. No ghost was ever known to steal 
out of this blessed cemetery.” 

“ That is well,” responded Miriam ; “ may he whom 
you now lay to sleep prove no exception to the rule ! ” 

As they left the cemetery she put money into the 
sacristan’s hand to an amount that made his eyes open 
wide and glisten, and requested that it might be expended 
in masses for the repose of Father Antonio’s soul. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE MEDICI GARDENS 

D ONATELLO,” said Miriam, anxiously, as they 
came through the Piazza Barberini, “ what can 
I do for you, my beloved friend ? You are shaking as 
with the cold fit of the Roman fever.” 

“Yes,” said Donatello; “my heart shivers.” 

As soon as she could collect her thoughts, Miriam led 
the young man to the gardens of the Villa Medici, hop¬ 
ing that the quiet shade and sunshine of that delightful 
retreat would a little revive his spirits. The grounds 
are there laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, 
with borders of box, which form hedges of great height 
and density, and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness 
of a wall of stone at the top and sides. There are 
green alleys, with long vistas, overshadowed by ilex- 
trees ; and at each intersection of the paths, the visitor 
finds seats of lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and 
marble statues that look forlornly at him, regretful of 
their lost noses. In the more open portions of the gar¬ 
den, before the sculptured front of the villa, you see 
fountains and flower-beds, and, in their season, a profu¬ 
sion of roses, from which the genial sun of Italy distils 
a fragrance to be scattered abroad by the no less genial 
breeze. 

But Donatello drew no delight from these things. He 
walked onward in silent apathy, and looked at Miriam 
with strangely half-awakened and bewildered eyes, when 
she sought to bring his mind into sympathy with hers, 
and so relieve his heart of the burden that lay lumpishly 
upon it. 

She made him sit down on a stone bench, where two 
embowered alleys crossed each other; so that they could 

i74 


THE MEDICI GARDENS 


* 7 $ 

discern the approach of any casual intruder a long way 
down the path. 

“My sweet friend,” she said, taking one of his passive 
hands in both of hers, “what can I say to comfort you?” 

“ Nothing ! ” replied Donatello, with sombre reserve. 
“ Nothing will ever comfort me.” 

“ I accept my own misery,” continued Miriam, “ my 
own guilt, if guilt it be—and, whether guilt or misery, I 
shall know how to deal with it. But you, dearest friend, 
that were the rarest creature in all this world, and seemed 
a being to whom sorrow could not cling — you, whom I 
half fancied to belong to a race that had vanished for¬ 
ever, you only surviving, to show mankind how genial 
and how joyous life used to be, in some long-gone age — 
what had you to do with grief or crime ? ” 

“ They came to me as to other men,” said Donatello, 
broodingly. “ Doubtless I was born to them.” 

“ No, no; they came with me,” replied Miriam. “ Mine 
is the responsibility! Alas! wherefore was I born ? Why 
did we ever meet ? Why did I not drive you from me, 
knowing—for my heart foreboded it—that the cloud in 
which I walked would likewise envelop you?” 

Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience 
that is often combined with a mood of leaden despond¬ 
ency. A brown lizard with two tails — a monster often 
engendered by the Roman sunshine—ran across his foot, 
and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so 
did Miriam, trying to dissolve her whole heart into sym¬ 
pathy, and lavish it all upon him, were it only for a 
moment’s cordial. 

The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, in¬ 
tentionally, as Miriam’s hand was within his, he lifted 
that along with it. 

“ I have a great weight here ! ” said he. 

The fancy struck Miriam (but she drove it resolutely 
down) that Donatello almost imperceptibly shuddered, 
while, in pressing his own hand against his heart, he 
pressed hers there too. 

“ Rest your heart on me, dearest one ! ” she resumed. 
“ Let me bear all its weight; I am well able to bear it; 


176 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


for I am a woman, and I love you! I love you, Dona¬ 
tello ! Is there no comfort for you in this avowal ? Look 
at me! Heretofore, you have found me pleasant to your 
sight. Gaze into my eyes ! Gaze into my soul! Search 
as deeply as you may, you can never see half the tender¬ 
ness and devotion that I henceforth cherish for you. All 
that I ask, is your acceptance of the utter self-sacrifice 
(but it shall be no sacrifice, to my great love) with which 
I seek to remedy the evil you have incurred for my 
sake! ” 

*A11 this fervor on Miriam’s part; on Donatello’s, a 
heavy silence. 

“ Oh, speak to me! ” she exclaimed. “Only promise 
me to be, by and by, a little happy! ” 

“ Happy ? ” murmured Donatello. “Ah, never again! 
never again! ” 

“ Never ? Ah, that is a terrible word to say to me ! ” 
answered Miriam. “ A terrible word to let fall upon a 
woman’s heart, when she loves you, and is conscious of 
having caused your misery! If you love me, Donatello, 
speak it not again. And surely you did love me ? ” 

“ I did,” replied Donatello, gloomily and absently. 

Miriam released the young man’s hand, but suffered 
one of her own to lie close to his, and waited a moment 
to see whether he would make any effort to retain it. 
There was much depending upon that simple experiment. 

With a deep sigh — as when, sometimes, a slumberer 
turns over in a troubled dream — Donatello changed his 
position, and clasped both his hands over his forehead. 
The genial warmth of a Roman April kindling into May 
was in the atmosphere around them; but when Miriam 
saw that involuntary movement and heard that sigh of 
relief (for so she interpreted it), a shiver ran through 
her frame, as if the iciest wind of the Apennines were 
blowing over her. 

“ He has done himself a greater wrong than I dreamed 
of,” thought she, with unutterable compassion. “Alas! 
it was a sad mistake! He might have had a kind of 
bliss in the consequences of this deed, had he been im¬ 
pelled to it by a love vital enough to survive the frenzy 


THE MEDICI GARDENS 


l 77 


of that terrible moment — mighty enough to make its 
own law, and justify itself against the natural remorse. 
But to have perpetrated a dreadful murder (and such was 
his crime, unless love, annihilating moral distinctions, 
made it otherwise) on no better warrant than a boy’s 
idle fantasy! I pity him from the very depths of my 
soul! As for myself, I am past my own or other’s 
pity.” 

She arose from the young man’s side, and stood before 
him with a sad, commiserating aspect; it was the look of 
a ruined soul, bewailing, in him, a grief less than what 
her profounder sympathies imposed upon herself. 

“ Donatello, we must part,” she said, with melancholy 
firmness. “Yes; leave me! Go back to your old 
tower, which overlooks the green valley you have told 
me of, among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed 
will be recognized as but an ugly dream. For, in dreams, 
the conscience sleeps, and we often stain ourselves with 
guilt of which we should be incapable in our waking mo¬ 
ments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was no 
more than such a dream; there was as little substance 
in what you fancied yourself doing. Go; and forget it 
all! ” 

“ Ah, that terrible face ! ” said Donatello, pressing his 
hands over his eyes. “ Do you call that unreal ? ” 

“Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes,” replied 
Miriam. “ It was unreal; and, that you may feel it so, 
it is requisite that you see this face of mine no more. 
Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it has lost 
its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency 
to bring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the 
remorse and anguish that would darken all your life. 
Leave me, therefore, and forget me.” 

“ Forget you, Miriam ! ” said Donatello, roused some¬ 
what from his apathy of despair. “ If I could remember 
you, and behold you, apart from that frightful visage 
which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a con¬ 
solation, at least, if not a joy.” 

“ But since that visage haunts you along with mine,” 
rejoined Miriam, glancing behind her, “we needs must 


i 7 8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


part. Farewell, then ! But if ever — in distress, peril, 
shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most poignant, 
whatever burden heaviest — you should require a life to 
be given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, 
then summon me ! As the case now stands between us, 
you have bought me dear, and find me of little worth. 
Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me 
more ! But, if otherwise, a wish — almost an unuttered 
wish — will bring me to you ! ” 

She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Dona¬ 
tello’s eyes had again fallen on the ground, and he had 
not, in his bewildered mind and over-burdened heart, a 
word to respond. 

“ That hour I speak of may never come,” said Miriam. 
“ So farewell — farewell forever.” 

“Farewell,” said Donatello. 

His voice hardly made its way through the environ¬ 
ment of unaccustomed thoughts and emotions which had 
settled over him like a dense and dark cloud. Not im¬ 
probably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium 
that she looked visionary; heard her speak only in a 
thin, faint echo. 

She turned from the young man, and, much as her 
heart yearned towards him, she would not profane that 
heavy parting by an embrace, or even a pressure of the 
hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty love, 
and after it had been the impulse to so terrible a deed, 
they parted, in all outward show, as coldly as people 
part whose whole mutual intercourse has been encircled 
within a single hour. 

And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched 
himself at full length on the stone bench, and drew his 
hat over his eyes, as the idle and light-hearted youths of 
dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when they lie down 
in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slum¬ 
ber. A stupor was upon him, which he mistook for 
such drowsiness as he had known in his innocent past 
life. But, by and by, he raised himself slowly and left 
the garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as if he 
heard a shriek ; sometimes he shrank back, as if a face, 


THE MEDICI GARDENS 


179 


fearful to behold, were thrust close to his own. In this 
dismal mood, bewildered with the novelty of sin and 
grief, he had little left of that singular resemblance, on 
account of which, and for their sport, his three friends 
had fantastically recognized him as the veritable Faun 
of Praxiteles. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


MIRIAM AND HILDA 

O N leaving the Medici Gardens, Miriam felt herself 
astray in the world; and having no special reason 
to seek one place more than another, she suffered chance 
to direct her steps as it would. Thus it happened, that, 
involving herself in the crookedness of Rome, she saw 
Hilda’s tower rising before her, and was put in mind to 
climb up to the young girl’s eyrie, and ask why she had 
broken her engagement at the church of the Capuchins. 
People often do the idlest acts of their lifetime in their 
heaviest and most anxious moments; so that it would 
have been no wonder had Miriam been impelled only 
by so slight a motive of curiosity as we have indicated. 
But she remembered, too, and with a quaking heart, 
what the sculptor had mentioned of Plilda’s retracing 
her steps towards the courtyard of the Palazzo Caffarelli 
in quest of Miriam herself. Had she been compelled 
to choose between infamy in the eyes of the whole world, 
or in Hilda’s eyes alone, she would unhesitatingly have 
accepted the former, on condition of remaining spotless 
in the estimation of her white-souled friend. This pos¬ 
sibility, therefore, that Hilda had witnessed the scene 
of the past night, was unquestionably the cause that 
drew Miriam to the tower, and made her linger and 
falter as she approached it. 

As she drew near, there were tokens to which her dis¬ 
turbed mind gave a sinister interpretation. Some of her 
friend’s airy family, the doves, with their heads imbedded 
disconsolately in their bosoms, were huddled in a corner 
of the piazza; others had alighted on the heads, wings, 
shoulders, and trumpets of the marble angels which 
adorned the facade of the neighboring church; two or 

180 


MIRIAM AND HILDA 


181 


three had betaken themselves to the Virgin’s shrine; and 
as many as could find room were sitting on Hilda’s win¬ 
dow-sill. But all of them, so Miriam fancied, had a look 
of weary expectation and disappointment — no flights, 
no flutterings, no cooing murmur; something that ought 
to have made their day glad and bright was evidently 
left out of this day’s history. And, furthermore, Hilda’s 
white window-curtain was closely drawn, with only that 
one little aperture at the side, which Miriam remembered 
noticing the night before. 

“ Be quiet,” said Miriam to her own heart, pressing 
her hand hard upon it. “Why shouldst thou throb 
now ? — Hast thou not endured more terrible things 
than this ? ” 

Whatever were her apprehensions, she would not turn 
back. It might be — and the solace would be worth a 
world —that Hilda, knowing nothing of the past night’s 
calamity, would greet her friend with a sunny smile, and 
so restore a portion of the vital warmth, for lack of which 
her soul was frozen. But could Miriam, guilty as she 
was, permit Hilda to kiss her cheek, to clasp her hand, 
and thus be no longer so unspotted from the world as 
heretofore ? 

“I will never permit her sweet touch again,” said 
Miriam, toiling up the staircase, “ if I can find strength 
of heart to forbid it. But, oh ! it would be so soothing 
in this wintry fever-fit of my heart. There can be no 
harm to my white Hilda in one parting kiss. That shall 
be all! ” 

But, on reaching the upper landing-place, Miriam 
paused, and stirred not again till she had brought her¬ 
self to an immovable resolve. 

“ My lips, my hand, shall never meet Hilda’s more,” 
said she. 

Meanwhile, Hilda sat listlessly in her painting-room. 
Had you looked into the little adjoining chamber, you 
might have seen the slight imprint of her figure on the 
bed, but would also have detected at once that the white 
counterpane had not been turned down. The pillow was 
more disturbed; she had turned her face upon it, the 


I 82 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


poor child, and bedewed it with some of those tears 
(among the most chill and forlorn that gush from human 
sorrow) which the innocent heart pours forth at its first 
actual discovery that sin is in the world. The young 
and pure are not apt to find out that miserable truth 
until it is brought home to them by the guiltiness of 
some trusted friend. They may have heard much of the 
evil of the world, and seem to know it, but only as an 
impalpable theory. In due time, some mortal, whom 
they reverence too highly, is commissioned by Provi¬ 
dence to teach there this direful lesson; he perpetrates 
a sin; and Adam falls anew, and Paradise, heretofore in 
unfaded bloom, is lost again, and closed forever, with the 
fiery swords gleaming at its gates. 

The chair in which Hilda sat was near the portrait of 
Beatrice Cenci, which had not yet been taken from the 
easel. It is a peculiarity of this picture, that its pro- 
foundest expression eludes a straightforward glance, and 
can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye 
falls casually upon it; even as if the painted face had a 
life and consciousness of its own, and, resolving not to 
betray its secret of grief or guilt, permitted the true 
tokens to come forth only when it imagined itself un¬ 
seen. No other such magical effect has ever been 
wrought by pencil. 

Now, opposite the easel hung a looking-glass, in which 
Beatrice’s face and Hilda’s were both reflected. In one 
of her weary, nerveless changes of position, Hilda hap¬ 
pened to throw her eyes on the glass, and took in both 
these images at one unpremeditated glance. She fancied 
— nor was it without horror — that Beatrice’s expression, 
seen aside and vanishing in a moment, had been depicted 
in her own face likewise, and flitted from it as timor¬ 
ously. 

“Am I, too, stained with guilt?” thought the poor 
girl, hiding her face in her hands. 

Not so, thank Heaven! But, as regards Beatrice’s 
picture, the incident suggests a theory which may 
account for its unutterable grief and mysterious shadow 
of guilt, without detracting from the purity which we 


MIRIAM AND HILDA 


183 

love to attribute to that ill-fated girl. Who, indeed, can 
look at that mouth — with its lips half apart, as innocent 
as a baby’s that has been crying — and not pronounce 
Beatrice sinless ! It was the intimate consciousness of 
her father’s sin that threw its shadow over her, and 
frightened her into a remote and inaccessible region, 
where no sympathy could come. It was the knowledge 
of Miriam’s guilt that lent the same expression to Hilda’s 
face. 

But Hilda nervously moved her chair, so that the im¬ 
ages in the glass should be no longer visible. She now 
watched a speck of sunshine that came through a shut¬ 
tered window, and crept from object to object, indicating 
each with a touch of its bright finger, and then letting 
them all vanish successively. In like manner, her mind, 
so like sunlight in its natural cheerfulness, went from 
thought to thought, but found nothing that it could dwell 
upon for comfort. Never before had this young, ener¬ 
getic, active spirit known what it is to be despondent. It 
was the unreality of the world that made her so. Her 
dearest friend, whose heart seemed the most solid and 
richest of Hilda’s possessions, had no existence for her 
any more; and in that dreary void, out of which Miriam 
had disappeared, the substance, the truth, the integrity 
of life, the motives of effort, the joy of success, had 
departed along with her. 

It was long past noon when a step came up the stair¬ 
case. It had passed beyond the limits where there was 
communication with the lower regions of the palace, and 
was mounting the successive flights which led only to 
Hilda’s precincts. Faint as the tread was, she heard and 
recognized it. It startled her into sudden life. Her first 
impulse was to spring to the door of the studio, and fasten 
it with lock and bolt. But a second thought made her 
feel that this would be an unworthy cowardice, on her 
own part, and also that Miriam — only yesterday her 
closest friend — had a right to be told, face to face, that 
thenceforth they must be forever strangers. 

She heard Miriam pause outside of the door. We 
have already seen what was the latter’s resolve with re- 


184 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


spect to any kiss or pressure of the hand between Hilda 
and herself. We know not what became of the resolu¬ 
tion. As Miriam was of a highly impulsive character, 
it may have vanished at the first sight of Hilda ; but, at 
all events, she appeared to have dressed herself up in a 
garb of sunshine, and was disclosed, as the door swung 
open, in all the glow of her remarkable beauty. The 
truth was, her heart leaped convulsively towards the only 
refuge that it had, or hoped. She forgot, just one instant, 
all cause for holding herself aloof. Ordinarily there 
was a certain reserve in Miriam’s demonstrations of 
affection, in consonance with the delicacy of her friend. 
To-day, she opened her arms to take Hilda in. 

“ Dearest, darling Hilda ! ” she exclaimed. “ It gives 
me new life to see you ! ” 

Hilda was standing in the middle of the room. When 
her friend made a step or two from the door, she put 
forth her hands with an involuntary repellent gesture, so 
expressive, that Miriam at once felt a great chasm open¬ 
ing itself between them two. They might gaze at one 
another from the opposite side, but without the possibility 
of ever meeting more; or, at least, since the chasm could 
never be bridged over, they must tread the whole round 
of Eternity to meet on the other side. There was even 
a terror in the thought of their meeting again. It was 
as if Hilda or Miriam were dead, and could no longer 
hold intercourse without violating a spiritual law. 

Yet, in the wantonness of her despair, Miriam made 
one more step towards the friend whom she had lost. 

“ Do not come nearer, Miriam ! ” said Hilda. 

Her look and tone were those of sorrowful entreaty, 
and yet they expressed a kind of confidence, as if the girl 
were conscious of a safeguard that could not be violated. 

“What has happened between us, Hilda?” asked 
Miriam. “ Are we not friends ? ” 

“ No, no ! ” said Hilda, shuddering. 

“ At least we have been friends,” continued Miriam. 
“I loved you dearly! I love you still! You were to 
me as a younger sister; yes, dearer than sisters of the 
same blood; for you and I were so lonely, Hilda, that 


MIRIAM AND HILDA 


185 

the whole world pressed us together by its solitude and 
strangeness. Then, will you not touch my hand ? Am 
I not the same as yesterday ? ” 

“ Alas ! no, Miriam ! ” said Hilda. 

“Yes, the same — the same for you, Hilda,” rejoined 
her lost friend. “ Were you to touch my hand, you 
would find it as warm to your grasp as ever. If you 
were sick or suffering, I would watch night and day for 
you. It is in such simple offices that true affection shows 
itself; and so I speak of them. Yet now, Hilda, your 
very look seems to put me beyond the limits of human¬ 
kind ! ” 

“It is not I, Miriam,” said Hilda; “not I that have 
done this.” 

“You, and you only, Hilda,” replied Miriam, stirred up 
to make her own cause good by the repellent force which 
her friend opposed to her. “ I am a woman, as I was 
yesterday ; endowed with the same truth of nature, the 
same warmth of heart, the same genuine and earnest love, 
which you have always known in me. In any regard 
that concerns yourself, I am not changed. And believe 
me, Hilda, when a human being has chosen a friend out 
of all the world, it is only some faithlessness between 
themselves, rendering true intercourse impossible, that 
can justify either friend in severing the bond. Have I 
deceived you ? Then cast me off! Have I wronged 
you personally ? Then forgive me, if you can. But, 
have I sinned against God and man, and deeply sinned ? 
Then be more my friend than ever, for I need you 
more.” 

“ Do not bewilder me thus, Miriam ! ” exclaimed Hilda, 
who had not forborne to express, by look and gesture, the 
anguish which this interview inflicted on her. “ If I were 
one of God’s angels, with a nature incapable of stain, and 
garments that never could be spotted, I would keep ever 
at your side, and try to lead you upward. But I am a 
poor, lonely girl, whom God has set here in an evil world, 
and given her only a white robe, and bid her wear it back 
to Him, as white as when she put it on. Your powerful 
magnetism would be too much for me. The pure, white 


186 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


atmosphere, in which I try to discern what things are 
good and true, would be discolored. And, therefore, 
Miriam, before it is too late, I mean to put faith in this 
awful heart-quake, which warns me henceforth to avoid 
you.” 

“ Ah, this is hard ! Ah, this is terrible ! ” murmured 
Miriam, dropping her forehead in her hands. In a mo¬ 
ment or two she looked up again, as pale as death, but 
with a composed countenance: “ I always said, Hilda, 
that you were merciless; for I had a perception of it, 
even while you loved me best. You have no sin, nor 
any conception of what it is; and therefore you are so 
terribly severe ! As an angel, you are not amiss; but, 
as a human creature, and a woman among earthly men 
and women, you need a sin to soften you.” 

“ God forgive me,” said Hilda, “if I have said a need¬ 
lessly cruel word! ” 

“ Let it pass,” answered Miriam ; “ I, whose heart it 
has smitten upon, forgive you. And tell me, before we 
part forever, what have you seen or known of me, since 
we last met ? ” 

“A terrible thing, Miriam,” said Hilda, growing paler 
than before. 

“ Do you see it written in my face, or painted in my 
eyes ? ” inquired Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a 
half-frenzied raillery. “ I would fain know how it is 
that Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to watch 
us, when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest 
privacy. Did all Rome see it, then ? Or, at least, our 
merry company of artists ? Or is it some blood-stain on 
me, or death-scent in my garments ? They say that 
monstrous deformities sprout out of fiends, who once 
were lovely angels. Do you perceive such in me already ? 
Tell me, by our past friendship, Hilda, all you know.” 

Thus adjured, and frightened by the wild emotion 
which Miriam could not suppress, Hilda strove to tell 
what she had witnessed. 

“After the rest of the party had passed on, I went 
back to speak to you,” she said ; “ for there seemed to 
be a trouble on your mind, and I wished to share it with 


MIRIAM AND HILDA 


187 


you, if you could permit me. The door of the little 
courtyard was partly shut; but I pushed it open, and 
saw you within, and Donatello, and a third person, 
whom I had before noticed in the shadow of a niche. 
He approached you, Miriam. You knelt to him! — I 
saw Donatello spring upon him! I would have shrieked, 
but my throat was dry. I would have rushed forward; 
but my limbs seemed rooted to the earth. — It was all 
like a flash of lightning. A look passed from your eyes 
to Donatello’s — a look — ” 

‘‘Yes, Hilda, yes!” exclaimed Miriam, with intense 
eagerness. “Do not pause now! That look?” 

“It revealed all your heart, Miriam,” continued Hilda, 
covering her eyes as if to shut out the recollection; “a 
look of hatred, triumph, vengeance, and, as it were, joy 
at some unhoped-for relief.” 

“ Ah ! Donatello was right, then,” murmured Miriam, 
who shook throughout all her frame. “ My eyes bade 
him do it! Go on, Hilda.” 

“ It all passed so quickly — all like a glare of light¬ 
ning,” said Hilda, “and yet it seemed to me that Dona¬ 
tello had paused, while one might draw a breath. But 
that look! — Ah, Miriam, spare me. Need I tell 
more ? ” 

“No more; there needs no more, Hilda,” replied 
Miriam, bowing her head, as if listening to a sentence 
of condemnation from a supreme tribunal. “ It is 
enough ! You have satisfied my mind on a point where 
it was greatly disturbed. Henceforward, I shall be 
quiet. Thank you, Hilda.” 

She was on the point of departing, but turned back 
again from the threshold. 

“ This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl’s 
bosom,” she observed; “what will you do with it, my 
poor child ? ” 

“Heaven help and guide me,” answered Hilda, burst¬ 
ing into tears ; “ for the burden of it crushes me to the 
earth ! It seems a crime to know of such a thing, and 
to keep it to myself. It knocks within my heart con¬ 
tinually, threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out! 


18 8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Oh, my mother ! — my mother ! Were she yet living, 
I would travel over land and sea to tell her this dark 
secret, as I told all the little troubles of my infancy. 
But I am alone—alone! Miriam, you were my dearest, 
only friend. Advise me what to do.” 

This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stain¬ 
less maiden to the guilty woman, whom she had just 
banished from her heart forever. But it bore striking 
testimony to the impression which Miriam’s natural up¬ 
rightness and impulsive generosity had made on the 
friend who knew her best; and it deeply comforted the 
poor criminal, by proving to her that the bond between 
Hilda and herself was vital yet. 

As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to 
the girl’s cry for help. 

“ If I deemed it good for your peace of mind,” she 
said, “ to bear testimony against me for this deed, in 
the face of all the world, no consideration of myself 
should weigh with me an instant. But I believe that 
you would find no relief in such a course. What men 
call justice lies chiefly in outward formalities, and has 
never the close application and fitness that would be 
satisfactory to a soul like yours. I cannot be fairly 
tried and judged before an earthly tribunal; and of this, 
Hilda, you would perhaps become fatally conscious, 
when it was too late. Roman justice, above all things, 
is a byword. What have you to do with it ? Leave all 
such thoughts aside! Yet, Hilda, I would not have you 
keep my secret imprisoned in your heart, if it tries to 
leap out, and stings you, like a wild, venomous thing, 
when you thrust it back again. Have you no other 
friend, now that you have been forced to give me 
up ? ” 

“No other,” answered Hilda, sadly. 

“Yes; Kenyon!” rejoined Miriam. 

“He cannot be my friend,” said Hilda, “because — 
because— I have fancied that he sought to be something 
more.” 

“ Fear nothing! ” replied Miriam, shaking her head, 
with a strange smile. “This story will frighten his 


MIRIAM AND HILDA 


189 


new-born love out of its little life, if that be what you 
wish. Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and 
honorable counsel as to what should next be done. I 
know not what else to say.” 

“ I never dreamed,” said Hilda, — “ how could you 
think it? — of betraying you to justice. But I see how 
it is, Miriam. I must keep your secret, and die of it, 
unless God sends me some relief by methods which are 
now beyond my power to imagine. It is very dreadful. 
Ah! now I understand how the sins of generations past 
have created an atmosphere of sin for those that follow. 
While there is a single guilty person in the universe, 
each innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by 
that guilt. Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole 
sky! ” 

Poor Hilda turned from her unhappy friend, and, 
sinking on her knees in a corner of the chamber, could 
not be prevailed upon to utter another word. And 
Miriam, with a long regard from the threshold, bade 
farewell to this doves’ nest, this one little nook of pure 
thoughts and innocent enthusiasms, into which she had 
brought such trouble. Every crime destroys more 
Edens than our own! 


CHAPTER XXIV 

THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES 

I T was in June, that the sculptor, Kenyon, arrived on 
horseback at the gate of an ancient country-house 
(which, from some of its features, might almost be called 
a castle) situated in a part of Tuscany somewhat remote 
from the ordinary track of tourists. Thither we must 
now accompany him, and endeavor to make our story 
flow onward, like a streamlet, past a gray tower that 
rises on the hillside, overlooking a spacious valley, 
which is set in the grand framework of the Apennines. 

The sculptor had left Rome with the retreating tide 
of foreign residents. For, as summer approaches, the 
Niobe of Nations is made to bewail anew, and doubtless 
with sincerity, the loss of that large part of her popula¬ 
tion, which she derives from other lands, and on whom 
depends much of whatever remnant of prosperity she 
still enjoys. Rome, at this season, is pervaded and 
overhung with atmospheric terrors, and insulated within 
a charmed and deadly circle. The crowd of wandering 
tourists betake themselves to Switzerland, to the Rhine, 
or, from this central home of the world, to their native 
homes in England or America, which they are apt thence¬ 
forward to look upon as provincial, after once having 
yielded to the spell of the Eternal City. The artist, 
who contemplates an indefinite succession of winters in 
this home of art (though his first thought was merely to 
improve himself by a brief visit), goes forth, in the sum¬ 
mer time, to sketch scenery and costume among the Tus¬ 
can hills, and pour, if he can, the purple air of Italy over 
his canvas. He studies the old schools of art in the 
mountain-towns where they were born, and where they 

190 


TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES 191 

are still to be seen in the faded frescoes of Giotto and 
Cimabue, on the walls of many a church, or in the dark 
chapels, in which the sacristan draws aside the veil 
from a treasured picture of Perugino. Thence, the 
happy painter goes to walk the long, bright galleries of 
Florence, or to steal glowing colors from the miraculous 
works, which he finds in a score of Venetian palaces. 
Such summers as these, spent amid whatever is exqui¬ 
site in art, or wild and picturesque in nature, may not 
inadequately repay him for the chill neglect and disap¬ 
pointment through which he has probably languished, in 
his Roman winter. This sunny, shadowy, breezy, wan¬ 
dering life, in which he seeks for beauty as his treasure, 
and gathers for his winter’s honey what is but a passing 
fragrance to all other men, is worth living for, come 
afterwards what may. Even if he die unrecognized, the 
artist has had his share of enjoyment and success. 

Kenyon had seen, at a distance of many miles, the 
old villa or castle, towards which his journey lay, look¬ 
ing from its height over a broad expanse of valley. As 
he drew nearer, however, it had been hidden among the 
inequalities of the hill-side, until the winding road 
brought him almost to the iron gateway. The sculptor 
found this substantial barrier fastened with lock and 
bolt. There was no bell, nor other instrument of sound; 
and, after summoning the invisible garrison with his 
voice, instead of a trumpet, he had leisure to take a 
glance at the exterior of the fortress. 

About thirty yards within the gateway rose a square 
tower, lofty enough to be a very prominent object in the 
landscape, and more than sufficiently massive in propor¬ 
tion to its height. Its antiquity was evidently such, 
that, in a climate of more abundant moisture, the ivy 
would have mantled it from head to foot in a garment 
that might, by this time, have been centuries old, though 
ever new. In the dry Italian air, however, Nature had 
only so far adopted this old pile of stonework as to 
cover almost every hand’s-breadth of it with close-cling¬ 
ing lichens and yellow moss; and the immemorial 
growth of these kindly productions rendered the general 


192 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


hue of the tower soft and venerable, and took away the 
aspect of nakedness which would have made its age 
drearier than now. 

Up and down the height of the tower were scattered 
three or four windows, the lower ones grated with iron 
bars, the upper ones vacant both of window-frames and 
glass. Besides these larger openings, there were sev¬ 
eral loopholes and little square apertures, which might 
be supposed to light the staircase, that doubtless climbed 
the interior towards the battlemented and machicolated 
summit. With this last-mentioned warlike garniture 
upon its stern old head and brow, the tower seemed evi¬ 
dently a stronghold of times long past. Many a cross¬ 
bowman had shot his shafts from those windows and 
loopholes, and from the vantage height of those gray 
battlements; many a flight of arrows, too, had hit all 
round about the embrasures above, or the apertures be¬ 
low, where the helmet of a defender had momentarily 
glimmered. On festal nights, moreover, a hundred lamps 
had often gleamed afar over the valley, suspended from 
the iron hooks that were ranged for the purpose beneath 
the battlements and every window. 

Connected with the tower, and extending behind it, 
there seemed to be a very spacious residence, chiefly of 
more modern date. It perhaps owed much of its fresher 
appearance, however, to a coat of stucco and yellow 
wash, which is a sort of renovation very much in vogue 
with the Italians. Kenyon noticed over a door-way, in 
the portion of the edifice immediately adjacent to the 
tower, a cross, which, with a bell suspended above the 
roof, indicated that this was a consecrated precinct, and 
the chapel of the mansion. 

Meanwhile, the hot sun so incommoded the unshel¬ 
tered traveller, that he shouted forth another impatient 
summons. Happening, at the same moment, to look up¬ 
ward, he saw a figure leaning from an embrasure of the 
battlements, and gazing down at him. 

“ Ho, Signor Count! ” cried the sculptor waving his 
straw hat, for he recognized the face, after a moment’s 
doubt. “This is a warm reception, truly! Pray bid 


TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES 193 

your porter let me in, before the sun shrivels me quite 
into a cinder.” 

“ I will come myself,” responded Donatello, flinging 
down his voice out of the clouds, as it were; “ old 
Tomaso and old Stella are both asleep, no doubt, and the 
rest of the people are in the vineyard. But I have ex¬ 
pected you, and you are welcome ! ” 

The young count, — as perhaps we had better desig¬ 
nate him in his ancestral tower,—vanished from the 
battlements; and Kenyon saw his figure appear succes¬ 
sively at each of the windows, as he descended. On 
every reappearance, he turned his face towards the sculp¬ 
tor and gave a nod and smile; for a kindly impulse 
prompted him thus to assure his visitor of a welcome, 
after keeping him so long at an inhospitable threshold. 

Kenyon, however (naturally and professionally expert 
at reading the expression of the human countenance), 
had a vague sense that this was not the young friend 
whom he had known so familiarly in Rome; not the syl¬ 
van and untutored youth, whom Miriam, Hilda, and him¬ 
self, had liked, laughed at, and sported with ; not the 
Donatello whose identity they had so playfully mixed 
up with that of the Faun of Praxiteles. 

Finally, when his host had emerged from aside-portal 
of the mansion, and approached the gateway, the trav¬ 
eller still felt that there was something lost, or something 
gained (he hardly knew which), that set the Donatello 
of to-day irreconcilably at odds with him of yesterday. 
His very gait showed it, in a certain gravity, a weight 
and measure of step, that had nothing in common with 
the irregular buoyancy which used to distinguish him. 
His face was paler and thinner, and the lips less full, and 
less apart. 

“ I have looked for you a long while,” said Donatello; 
and, though his voice sounded differently, and cut out its 
words more sharply than had been its wont, still there 
was a smile shining on his face, that, for the moment, 
quite brought back the Faun. “ I shall be more cheer¬ 
ful, perhaps, now that you have come. It is very soli¬ 
tary here.” 


i 9 4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ I have come slowly along, often lingering, often turn¬ 
ing aside,” replied Kenyon; “for I found a great deal to 
interest me in the mediaeval sculpture hidden away in 
the churches hereabouts. An artist, whether painter or 
sculptor, may be pardoned for loitering through such a 
region. But what a fine old tower ! Its tall front is like 
a page of black-letter, taken from the history of the 
Italian republics.” 

“ I know little or nothing of its history,” said the count, 
glancing upward at the battlements, where he had just 
been standing. “ But I thank my forefathers for build¬ 
ing it so high. I like the windy summit better than the 
world below, and spend much of my time there, nowa¬ 
days.” 

“ It is a pity you are not a star-gazer,” observed Ken¬ 
yon, also looking up. “ It is higher than Galileo’s tower, 
which I saw a week or two ago, outside of the walls 
of Florence.” 

“ A star-gazer ? I am one,” replied Donatello. “ I 
sleep in the tower, and often watch very late on the bat¬ 
tlements. There is a dismal old staircase to climb, how¬ 
ever, before reaching the top, and a succession of dismal 
chambers, from story to story. Some of them were 
prison chambers in times past, as old Tomaso will tell 
you.” 

The repugnance intimated in his tone at the idea of this 
gloomy staircase and these ghostly, dimly lighted rooms, 
reminded Kenyon of the original Donatello, much more 
than his present custom of midnight vigils on the battle¬ 
ments. 

“ I shall be glad to share your watch,” said the guest; 
“ especially by moonlight. The prospect of this broad 
valley must be very fine. But I was not aware, my 
friend, that these were your country habits. I have fan¬ 
cied you in a sort of Arcadian life, tasting rich figs, and 
squeezing the juice out of the sunniest grapes, and sleep¬ 
ing soundly, all night, after a day of simple pleasures.” 

“ I may have known such a life, when I was younger,” 
answered the count, gravely. “ I am not a boy now. 
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” 


TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES 195 

The sculptor could not but smile at the triteness of the 
remark, which, nevertheless, had a kind of originality as 
coming from Donatello. He had thought it out from his 
own experience, and perhaps considered himself as com¬ 
municating a new truth to mankind. 

They were now advancing up the courtyard; and the 
long extent of the villa, with its iron-barred lower win¬ 
dows and balconied upper ones, became visible, stretching 
back towards a grove of trees. 

“ At some period of your family history,” observed 
Kenyon, “ the Counts of Monte Beni must have led a 
patriarchal life in this vast house. A great-grandsire and 
all his descendants might find ample verge here, and with 
space, too, for each separate brood of little ones to play 
within its own precincts. Is your present household a 
large one ? ” 

“Only myself,” answered Donatello, “and Tomaso, 
who has been butler since my grandfather’s time, and old 
Stella, who goes sweeping and dusting about the cham¬ 
bers, and Girolamo, the cook, who has but an idle life 
of it. He shall send you up a chicken forthwith. But, 
first of all, I must summon one of the contadini from the 
farm-house yonder, to take your horse to the stable.” 

Accordingly, the young count shouted amain, and with 
such effect, that, after several repetitions of the outcry, an 
old gray woman protruded her head and a broom-handle 
from a chamber window ; the venerable butler emerged 
from a recess in the side of the house, where was a well, 
or reservoir, in which he had been cleansing a small 
wine-cask ; and a sunburnt contadino, in his shirt-sleeves, 
showed himself on the outskirts of the vineyard, with 
some kind of a farming tool in his hand. Donatello found 
employment for all these retainers in providing accom¬ 
modation for his guest and steed, and then ushered the 
sculptor into the vestibule of the house. 

It was a square and lofty entrance room, which by the ' 
solidity of its construction might have been an Etruscan 
tomb, being paved and walled with heavy blocks of stone 
and vaulted almost as massively overhead. On two sides, 
there were doors, opening into long suites of anterooms 


196 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


and saloons; on the third side, a stone staircase, of spa¬ 
cious breadth, ascending, by dignified degrees and with 
wide resting-places, to another floor of similar extent. 
Through one of the doors, which was ajar, Kenyon be¬ 
held an almost interminable vista of apartments, opening 
one beyond the other, and reminding him of the hundred 
rooms in Blue Beard’s castle, or the countless halls in 
some palace of the Arabian Nights. 

It must have been a numerous family, indeed, that 
could ever have sufficed to people with human life so 
large an abode as this, and impart social warmth to such 
a wide world within doors. The sculptor confessed to 
himself, that Donatello could allege reason enough for 
growing melancholy, having only his own personality to 
vivify it all. 

“ How a woman’s face would brighten it up! ” he 
ejaculated, not intending to be overheard. 

But, glancing at Donatello, he saw a stern and sorrow¬ 
ful look in his eyes, which altered his youthful face as 
if it had seen thirty years of trouble; and at the same 
moment, old Stella showed herself through one of the 
door-ways, as the only representative of her sex at Monte 
Beni. 


CHAPTER XXV 


SUNSHINE 

“ pOME,” said the count, “ I see you already find the 
old house dismal. So do I, indeed! And yet it 
was a cheerful place in my boyhood. But, you see, in my 
father’s days (and the same was true of all my endless 
line of grandfathers, as I have heard), there used to be 
uncles, aunts, and all manner of kindred, dwelling to¬ 
gether as one family. They were a merry and kindly 
race of people, for the most part, and kept one another’s 
hearts warm.” 

“Two hearts might be enough for warmth,” observed 
the sculptor, “ even in so large a house as this. One 
solitary heart, it is true, may be apt to shiver a little. 
But, I trust, my friend, that the genial blood of your race 
still flows in many veins besides your own? ” 

“lam the last,” said Donatello, gloomily. “They 
have all vanished from me, since my childhood. Old 
Tomaso will tell you that the air of Monte Beni is not so 
favorable to length of days as it used to be. But that is 
not the secret of the quick extinction of my kindred.” 

“ Then you are aware of a more satisfactory reason ?” 
suggested Kenyon. 

“ I thought of one, the other night, while I was gazing 
at the stars,” answered Donatello ; “ but, pardon me, I do 
not mean to tell it. One cause, however, of the longer 
and healthier life of my forefathers, was that they had 
many pleasant customs, and means of making themselves 
glad, and their guests and friends along with them. 
Nowadays we have but one ! ” 

“ And what is that ? ” asked the sculptor. 

“You shall see ! ” said his young host. 

By this time, he had ushered the sculptor into one of 
197 


198 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


the numberless saloons; and, calling for refreshment, 
old Stella placed a cold fowl upon the table, and quickly 
followed it with a savory omelet, which Girolamo had 
lost no time in preparing. She also brought some 
cherries, plums, and apricots, and a plate full of par¬ 
ticularly delicate figs, of last year’s growth. The butler 
showing his white head at the door, his master beckoned 
to him. 

“Tomaso, bring some Sunshine! ” said he. 

The readiest method of obeying this order, one might 
suppose, would have been to fling wide the green win¬ 
dow-blinds, and let the glow of the summer noon into 
the carefully shaded room. But, at Monte Beni, with 
provident caution against the wintry days, when there is 
little sunshine, and the rainy ones, when there is none, it 
was the hereditary custom to keep their Sunshine stored 
away in the cellar. Old Tomaso quickly produced some 
of it in a small, straw-covered flask, out of which he ex¬ 
tracted the cork, and inserted a little cotton wool to 
absorb the olive oil that kept the precious liquid from 
the air. 

“ This is a wine,” observed the count, “ the secret of 
making which has been kept in our family for centuries 
upon centuries; nor would it avail any man to steal the 
secret, unless he could also steal the vineyard, in which 
alone the Monte Beni grape can be produced. There is 
little else left me, save that patch of vines. Taste some 
of their juice, and tell me whether it is worthy to be 
called Sunshine! for that is its name.” 

“ A glorious name, too ! ” cried the sculptor. 

“Taste it,” said Donatello, filling his friend’s glass and 
pouring likewise a little into his own. “ But first smell 
its fragrance ; for the wine is very lavish of it, and will 
scatter it all abroad.” 

“ Ah, how exquisite ! ” said Kenyon. “ No other wine 
has a bouquet like this. The flavor must be rare indeed, 
if it fulfil the promise of this fragrance, which is like the 
airy sweetness of youthful hopes, that no realities will 
ever satisfy! ” 

This invaluable liquor was of a pale golden hue, like 


SUNSHINE 


199 


other of the rarest Italian wines, and, if carelessly and 
irreligiously quaffed, might have been mistaken for a 
very fine sort of Champagne. It was not, however, an 
effervescing wine, although its delicate piquancy pro¬ 
duced a somewhat similar effect upon the palate. Sip¬ 
ping, the guest longed to sip again; but the wine 
demanded so deliberate a pause, in order to detect the 
hidden peculiarities and subtle exquisiteness of its flavor, 
that to drink it was really more a moral than a physical 
enjoyment. There was a deliciousness in it that eluded 
analysis, and — like whatever else is superlatively good 
— was perhaps better appreciated in the memory than 
by present consciousness. One of its most ethereal 
charms lay in the transitory life of the wine’s richest 
qualities; for, while it required a certain leisure and 
delay, yet, if you lingered too long upon the draught, it 
became disenchanted both of its fragrance and its flavor. 

The lustre should not be forgotten, among the other 
admirable endowments of the Monte Beni wine; for, as 
it stood in Kenyon’s glass, a little circle of light glowed 
on the table round about it, as if it were really so much 
golden sunshine. 

“ I feel myself a better man for that ethereal pota¬ 
tion,” observed the sculptor. “ The finest Orvieto, or 
that famous wine, the Est Est Est of Montefiascone, is 
vulgar in comparison. This is surely the wine of the 
Golden Age, such as Bacchus himself first taught man¬ 
kind to press from the choicest of his grapes. My dear 
count, why is it not illustrious ? The pale, liquid gold, 
in every such flask as that, might be solidified into 
golden scudi, and would quickly make you a million- 
naire! ” 

Tomaso, the old butler, who was standing by the 
table, and enjoying the praises of the wine quite as 
much as if bestowed upon himself, made answer : -— 

“ We have a tradition, signore,” said he, “ that this rare 
wine of our vineyard would lose all its wonderful quali¬ 
ties, if any of it were sent to market. The Counts of 
Monte Beni have never parted with a single flask of it 
for gold. At their banquets, in the olden time, they 


200 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


have entertained princes, cardinals, and once an em¬ 
peror, and once a pope, with this delicious wine, and 
always, even to this day, it has been their custom to let 
it flow freely, when those whom they love and honor sit 
at the board. But the grand duke himself could not 
drink that wine, except it were under this very roof! ” 

“What you tell me, my good friend,” replied Kenyon, 
“ makes me venerate the Sunshine of Monte Beni even 
more abundantly than before. As I understand you, it 
is a sort of consecrated juice, and symbolizes the holy 
virtues of hospitality and social kindness ? ” 

“Why, partly so, signore,” said the old butler, with a 
shrewd twinkle in his eye; “ but, to speak out all the 
truth, there is another excellent reason why neither a 
cask nor a flask of our precious vintage should ever be 
sent to market. The wine, signore, is so fond of its 
native home, that a transportation of even a few miles 
turns it quite sour. And yet it is a wine that keeps well 
in the cellar, underneath this floor, and gathers fragrance, 
flavor, and brightness in its dark dungeon. That very 
flask of Sunshine, now, has kept itself for you, sir guest, 
(as a maid reserves her sweetness till her lover comes 
for it,) ever since a merry vintage-time, when the Signore 
Count here was a boy! ” 

“You must not wait for Tomaso to end his discourse 
about the wine, before drinking off your glass,” observed 
Donatello. “ When once the flask is uncorked, its finest 
qualities lose little time in making their escape. I doubt 
whether your last sip will be quite so delicious as you 
found the first.” 

And, in truth, the sculptor fancied that the Sunshine 
became almost imperceptibly clouded, as he approached 
the bottom of the flask. The effect of the wine, how¬ 
ever, was a gentle exhilaration, which did not so speedily 
pass away. 

Being thus refreshed, Kenyon looked around him at 
the antique saloon in which they sat. It was constructed 
in a most ponderous style, with a stone floor, on which 
heavy pilasters were planted against the wall, support¬ 
ing arches that crossed one another in the vaulted ceil- 


SUNSHINE 


201 


irig. The upright walls, as well as the compartments 
of the roof, were completely covered with frescoes, 
which doubtless had been brilliant when first executed, 
and perhaps for generations afterwards. The designs 
were of a festive and joyous character, representing 
Arcadian scenes, where nymphs, fauns, and satyrs, dis¬ 
ported themselves among mortal youths and maidens; 
and Pan, and the god of wine, and he of sunshine and 
music, disdained not to brighten some sylvan merry¬ 
making with the scarcely veiled glory of their presence. 
A wreath of dancing figures, in admirable variety of 
shape and motion, was festooned quite round the cor¬ 
nice of the room. 

In its first splendor, the saloon must have presented 
an aspect both gorgeous and enlivening; for it invested 
some of the cheerfullest ideas and emotions of which 
the human mind is susceptible with the external reality 
of beautiful form, and rich, harmonious glow and variety 
of color. But the frescoes were now very ancient. 
They had been rubbed and scrubbed by old Stella and 
many a predecessor, and had been defaced in one spot, 
and retouched in another, and had peeled from the wall 
in patches, and had hidden some of their brightest por¬ 
tions under dreary dust, till the joyousness had quite van¬ 
ished out of them all. It was often difficult to puzzle 
out the design; and even where it was more readily 
intelligible, the figures showed like the ghosts of dead 
and buried joys — the closer their resemblance to the 
happy past, the gloomier now. For it is thus, that with 
only an inconsiderable change, the gladdest objects and 
existences become the saddest; hope fading into disap¬ 
pointment; joy darkening into grief, and festal splendor 
into funereal duskiness ; and all evolving, as their moral, 
a grim identity between gay things and sorrowful ones. 
Only give them a little time, and they turn out to be 
just alike ! 

“There has been much festivity in this saloon, if I 
may judge by the character of its frescoes,” remarked 
Kenyon, whose spirits were still upheld by the mild 
potency of the Monte Beni wine. “Your forefathers, 


202 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


my dear count, must have been joyous fellows, keeping 
up the vintage merriment throughout the year. It 
does me good to think of them gladdening the hearts of 
men and women with their wine of Sunshine, even in 
the Iron age, as Pan and Bacchus, whom we see yon¬ 
der, did in the Golden one! ” 

“ Yes; there have been merry times in the banquet- 
hall of Monte Beni, even within my own remembrance,” 
replied Donatello, looking gravely at the painted walls. 
“ It was meant for mirth, as you see; and when I 
brought my own cheerfulness into the saloon, these 
frescoes looked cheerful too. But methinks they have 
all faded, since I saw them last.” 

“It would be a good idea,” said the sculptor, falling 
into his companion’s vein, and helping him out with an 
illustration which Donatello himself could not have put 
into shape, “ to convert this saloon into a chapel; and 
when the priest tells his hearers of the instability of 
earthly joys, and would show how drearily they vanish, 
he may point to these pictures, that were so joyous, and 
are so dismal. He could not illustrate his theme so 
aptly in any other way.” 

“True, indeed,” answered the count, his former sim¬ 
plicity strangely mixing itself up with an experience that 
had changed him; “and yonder, where the minstrels 
used to stand, the altar shall be placed. A sinful man 
might do all the more effective penance in this old ban¬ 
quet-hall.” 

“ But I should regret to have suggested so ungenial 
a transformation in your hospitable saloon,” continued 
Kenyon, duly noting the change in Donatello’s charac¬ 
teristics. “You startle me, my friend, by so ascetic a 
design ! It would hardly have entered your head, when 
we first met. Pray do not — if I may take the freedom 
of a somewhat elder man to advise you,” added he, smil¬ 
ing — “ pray do not, under a notion of improvement, take 
upon yourself to be sombre, thoughtful, and penitential, 
like all the rest of us.” 

Donatello made no answer, but sat awhile, appearing 
to follow with his eyes one of the figures, which was re- 


SUNSHINE 


203 


peated many times over in the groups upon the walls 
and ceiling. It formed the principal link of an allegory, 
by which (as is often the case in such pictorial designs) 
the whole series of frescoes were bound together, but 
which it would be impossible, or, at least, very weari¬ 
some, to unravel. The sculptor’s eyes took a similar 
direction, and soon began to trace through the vicissi¬ 
tudes — once gay, now sombre — in which the old artist 
had involved it, the same individual figure. He fancied 
a resemblance in it to Donatello himself ; and it put him 
in mind of one of the purposes with which he had come 
to Monte Beni. 

“ My dear count,” said he, “ I have a proposal to 
make. You must let me employ a little of my leisure 
in modelling your bust. You remember what a striking 
resemblance we all of us — Hilda, Miriam, and I — found 
between your features and those of the Faun of Praxit¬ 
eles. Then, it seemed an identity; but now that I know 
your face better, the likeness is far less apparent. Your 
head in marble would be a treasure to me. Shall I have 
it ? ” 

“ I have a weakness which I fear I cannot overcome,” 
replied the count, turning away his face. “ It troubles 
me to be looked at steadfastly.” 

“ I have observed it since we have been sitting here, 
though never before,” rejoined the sculptor. “It is a 
kind of nervousness, I apprehend, which you caught in 
the Roman air, and which grows upon you, in your soli¬ 
tary life. It need be no hindrance to my taking your 
bust; for I will catch the likeness and expression by side 
glimpses, which (if portrait painters and bust makers 
did but know it) always bring home richer results than a 
broad stare.” 

“ You may take me if you have the power,” said Dona¬ 
tello ; but, even as he spoke, he turned away his face; 
“ and if you can see what makes me shrink from you, 
you are welcome to put it in the bust. It is not my will, 
but my necessity, to avoid men’s eyes. Only,” he added, 
with a smile which made Kenyon doubt whether he might 
not as well copy the Faun as model a new bust, “ only, 


204 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


you know, you must not insist on my uncovering these 
ears of mine ! ” 

“ Nay; I never should dream of such a thing,” an¬ 
swered the sculptor, laughing as the young count shook 
his clustering curls. “ I could not hope to persuade you, 
remembering how Miriam once failed! ” * 

Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that 
often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be pres¬ 
ent to the mind, so distinctly that no utterance could 
make it more so; and two minds may be conscious of 
the same thought, in which one or both take the pro- 
foundest interest; but as long as it remains unspoken, 
their familiar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea, as 
a rivulet may sparkle and dimple over something sunken 
in its bed. But, speak the word ; and it is like bringing 
up a drowned body out of the deepest pool of the rivu¬ 
let, which has been aware of the horrible secret all along, 
in spite of its smiling surface. 

And even so, when Kenyon chanced to make a dis¬ 
tinct reference to Donatello’s relations with Miriam 
(though the subject was already in both their minds), a 
ghastly emotion rose up out of the depths of the young 
count’s heart. He trembled either with anger or terror, 
and glared at the sculptor with wild eyes, like a wolf that 
meets you in the forest, and hesitates whether to flee or 
turn to bay. But, as Kenyon still looked calmly at him, 
his aspect gradually became less disturbed, though far 
from resuming its former quietude. 

“You have spoken her name,” said he, at last, in an 
altered and tremulous tone; “tell me, now, all that you 
know of her.” 

“ I scarcely think that I have any later intelligence 
than yourself,” answered Kenyon; “ Miriam left Rome 
at about the time of your own departure. Within a day 
or two after our last meeting at the Church of the 
Capuchins, I called at her studio and found it vacant. 
Whither she has gone, I cannot tell.” 

Donatello asked no further questions. 

They rose from table, and strolled together about the 
premises, whiling away the afternoon with brief inter- 


SUNSHINE 


205 


vals of unsatisfactory conversation and many shadowy 
silences. The sculptor had a perception of change in 
his companion, — possibly of growth and development, 
but certainly of change, — which saddened him, because 
it took away much of the simple grace that was the best 
of Donatello’s peculiarities. 

Kenyon betook himself to repose that night in a grim, 
old, vaulted apartment, which, in the lapse of five or six 
centuries, had probably been the birth, bridal, and death 
chamber of a great many generations of the Monte Beni 
family. He was aroused, soon after daylight, by the 
clamor of a tribe of beggars who had taken their stand 
in a little rustic lane that crept beside that portion of the 
villa, and were addressing their petitions to the open 
windows. By and by, they appeared to have received 
alms, and took their departure. 

“ Some charitable Christian has sent those vagabonds 
away,” thought the sculptor, as he resumed his inter¬ 
rupted nap ; “ who could it be ? Donatello has his own 
rooms in the tower; Stella, Tomaso, and the cook are a 
world’s width off; and I fancied myself the only inhabit¬ 
ant in this part of the house.” 

In the breadth and space which so delightfully char¬ 
acterize an Italian villa, a dozen guests might have had 
each his suite of apartments without infringing upon one 
another’s ample precincts. But, so far as Kenyon knew, 
he was the only visitor beneath Donatello’s widely ex¬ 
tended roof. 
























































I 
























































































































































































































































THE MARBLE FAUN 


OR 

THE ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI 


BY 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 

KATHARINE LEE BATES 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN WELLESLEY COLLEGE 


VOL. II 


NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


TKr LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Co*Mfce R ecsived 

AUG 20 1902 

CnPVRtOHT EMTBY 

(Aaa^L. G • IC(CV 
Class' 1 <VXXc. no. 
* 

co^ v b_ 

/ YVo>cO sicl - 


Copyright, 1902, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 



PAGE 

I. 

The Pedigree of Monte Beni . 



I 

II. 

Myths .... 



12 

III. 

The Owl Tower. 



21 

IV. 

On the Battlements .... 



28 

V. 

Donatello’s Bust .... 



38 

VI. 

The Marble Saloon .... 



45 

VII. 

Scenes by the Way .... 



55 

VIII. 

Pictured Windows .... 



66 

IX. 

Market-day in Perugia 



74 

X. 

The Bronze Pontiff’s Benediction . 



80 

XI. 

Hilda’s Tower. 



88 

XII. 

The Emptiness of Picture-galleries 



95 

XIII. 

Altars and Incense .... 



105 

XIV. 

The World’s Cathedral 



114 

XV. 

Hilda and a Friend .... 



122 

XVI. 

Snowdrops and Maidenly Delights . 



132 

XVII. 

Reminiscences of Miriam . 



140 

XVIII. 

The Extinction of a Lamp 



147 

XIX. 

The Deserted Shrine 



155 

XX. 

The Flight of Hilda’s Doves . 



164 

XXI. 

A Walk on the Campagna 



172 

XXII. 

The Peasant and Contadina 



179 

XXIII. 

A Scene in the Corso 



188 

XXIV. 

A Frolic of the Carnival 

• 


195 

XXV. 

Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello 

. 


205 


iii 













CHAPTER I 


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI 

F ROM the old butler, whom he found to be a very 
gracious and affable personage, Kenyon soon learned 
many curious particulars about the family history and 
hereditary peculiarities of the Counts of Monte Beni. 
There was a pedigree, the later portion of which — that 
is to say, for a little more than a thousand years — a 
genealogist would have found delight in tracing out, link 
by link, and authenticating by records and documentary 
evidences. It would have been as difficult, however, to 
follow up the stream of Donatello’s ancestry to its dim 
source, as travellers have found it to reach the mysteri¬ 
ous fountains of the Nile. And, far beyond the region 
of definite and demonstrable fact, a romancer might 
have strayed into a region of old poetry, where the rich 
soil, so long uncultivated and untrodden, had lapsed into 
nearly its primeval state of wilderness. Among those 
antique paths, now overgrown with tangled and riotous 
vegetation, the wanderer must needs follow his own 
guidance, and arrive nowhither at last. 

The race of Monte Beni, beyond a doubt, was one 
of the oldest in Italy, where families appear to survive 
at least, if not to flourish, on their half-decayed roots, 
oftener than in England or France. It came down in 
a broad track from the Middle Ages; but at epochs 
anterior to those, it was distinctly visible in the gloom 
of the period before chivalry put forth its flower; and 
farther still, we are almost afraid to say, it was seen, 
though with a fainter and wavering course, in the early 


1 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


morn of Christendom, when the Roman Empire had 
hardly begun to show symptoms of decline. At that 
venerable distance, the heralds gave up the lineage in 
despair. 

But where written record left the genealogy of Monte 
Beni, tradition took it up, and carried it without dread 
or shame beyond the Imperial ages into the times of the 
Roman republic ; beyond those, again, into the epoch of 
kingly rule. Nor even so remotely among the mossy 
centuries did it pause, but strayed onward into that gray 
antiquity of which there is no token left, save its cav¬ 
ernous tombs, and a few bronzes, and some quaintly 
wrought ornaments of gold, and gems with mystic fig¬ 
ures and inscriptions. There, or thereabouts, the line 
was supposed to have had its origin in the sylvan life 
of Etruria, while Italy was yet guiltless of Rome. 

Of course, as we regret to say, the earlier and very 
much the larger portion of this respectable descent — 
and the same is true of many briefer pedigrees — must 
be looked upon as altogether mythical. Still, it threw a 
romantic interest around the unquestionable antiquity of 
the Monte Beni family, and over that tract of their own 
vines and fig-trees, beneath the shade of which they had 
unquestionably dwelt for immemorial ages. And there 
they had laid the foundations of their tower, so long ago 
that one half of its height was said to be sunken under 
the surface and to hide subterranean chambers which 
once were cheerful with the olden sunshine. 

One story, or myth, that had mixed itself up with 
their mouldy genealogy, interested the sculptor by its 
wild, and perhaps grotesque, yet not unfascinating peculi¬ 
arity. He caught at it the more eagerly, as it afforded a 
shadowy and whimsical semblance of explanation for the 
likeness which he, with Miriam and Hilda, had seen or 
fancied, between Donatello and the Faun of Praxiteles. 

The Monte Beni family, as this legend averred, drew 
their origin from the Pelasgic race, who peopled Italy in 
times that may be called pre-historic. It was the same 
noble breed of men, of Asiatic birth, that settled in 
Greece; the same happy and poetic kindred who dwelt 


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI 


3 


in Arcadia, and — whether they ever lived such life or 
not—enriched the world with dreams, at least, and fables, 
lovely, if unsubstantial, of a Golden Age. In those deli¬ 
cious times, when deities and demigods appeared famil¬ 
iarly on earth, mingling with its inhabitants as friend 
with friend — when nymphs, satyrs, and the whole train 
of classic faith or fable, hardly took pains to hide them¬ 
selves in the primeval woods — at that auspicious period 
the lineage of Monte Beni had its rise. Its progenitor 
was a being not altogether human, yet partaking so 
largely of the gentlest human qualities, as to be neither 
awful nor shocking to the imagination. A sylvan crea¬ 
ture, native among the woods, had loved a mortal maiden, 
and — perhaps by kindness, and the subtle courtesies 
which love might teach to his simplicity, or possibly by 
a ruder wooing — had won her to his haunts. In due 
time, he gained her womanly affection; and, making 
their bridal bower, for aught we know, in the hollow 
of a great tree, the pair spent a happy wedded life in 
that ancient neighborhood where now stood Donatello’s 
tower. 

From this union sprang a vigorous progeny that took 
its place unquestioned among human families. In that 
age, however, and long afterwards, it showed the inef¬ 
faceable lineaments of its wild paternity: it was a pleasant 
and kindly race of men, but capable of savage fierce¬ 
ness, and never quite restrainable within the trammels 
of social law. They were strong, active, genial, cheerful 
as the sunshine, passionate as the tornado. Their lives 
were rendered blissful by an unsought harmony with 
nature. 

But, as centuries passed away, the Faun’s wild blood 
had necessarily been attempered with constant inter¬ 
mixtures from the more ordinary streams of human life. 
It lost many of its original qualities, and served, for the 
most part, only to bestow an unconquerable vigor which 
kept the family from extinction, and enabled them to 
make their own part good throughout the perils and 
rude emergencies of their interminable descent. In the 
constant wars with which Italy was plagued, by the 


4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


dissensions of her petty states and republics, there was 
a demand for native hardihood. 

The successive members of the Monte Beni family 
showed valor and policy enough, at all events, to keep 
their hereditary possessions out of the clutch of grasp¬ 
ing neighbors, and probably differed very little from the 
other feudal barons with whom they fought and feasted. 
Such a degree of conformity with the manners of the 
generations, through which it survived, must have been 
essential to the prolonged continuance of the race. 

It is well known, however, that any hereditary pecul¬ 
iarity— as a supernumerary finger, or an anomalous 
shape of feature, like the Austrian lip — is wont to show 
itself in a family after a very wayward fashion. It skips 
at its own pleasure along the line, and, latent for half a 
century or so, crops out again in a great-grandson. And 
thus, it was said, from a period beyond memory or record, 
there had ever and anon been a descendant of the Monte 
Benis bearing nearly all the characteristics that were 
attributed to the original founder of the race. Some tra¬ 
ditions even went so far as to enumerate the ears, covered 
with a delicate fur, and shaped like a pointed leaf, among 
the proofs of authentic descent which were seen in these 
favored individuals. We appreciate the beauty of such 
tokens of a nearer kindred to the great family of nature 
than other mortals bear; but it would be idle to ask 
credit for a statement which might be deemed to par¬ 
take so largely of the grotesque. 

But it was indisputable that, once in a century, or 
oftener, a son of Monte Beni gathered into himself the 
scattered qualities of his race, and reproduced the char¬ 
acter that had been assigned to it from immemorial times. 
Beautiful, strong, brave, kindly, sincere, of honest im¬ 
pulses, and endowed with simple tastes and the love of 
homely pleasures, he was believed to possess gifts by 
which he could associate himself with the wild things of 
the forests, and with the fowls of the air, and could feel 
a sympathy even with the trees, among which it was his 
joy to dwell. On the other hand, there were deficiencies 
both of intellect and heart, and especially, as it seemed, 


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI 


5 


in the development of the higher portion of man’s nature. 
These defects were less perceptible in early youth, but 
showed themselves more strongly with advancing age, 
when, as the animal spirits settled down upon a lower 
level, the representative of the Monte Benis was apt to 
become sensual, addicted to gross pleasures, heavy, un¬ 
sympathizing, and insulated within the narrow limits of 
a surly selfishness. 

A similar change, indeed, is no more than what we 
constantly observe to take place in persons who are not 
careful to substitute other graces for those which they 
inevitably lose along with the quick sensibility and joy¬ 
ous vivacity of youth. At worst, the reigning Count of 
Monte Beni, as his hair grew white, was still a jolly old 
fellow over his flask of wine — the wine that Bacchus 
himself was fabled to have taught his sylvan ancestor 
how to express, and from what choicest grapes, which 
would ripen only in a certain divinely favored portion of 
the Monte Beni vineyard. 

The family, be it observed, were both proud and 
ashamed of these legends; but whatever part of them 
they might consent to incorporate into their ancestral 
history, they steadily repudiated all that referred to their 
one distinctive feature, the pointed and furry ears. In 
a great many years past, no sober credence had been 
yielded to the mythical portion of the pedigree. It 
might, however, be considered as typifying some such 
assemblage of qualities — in this case, chiefly remarka¬ 
ble for their simplicity and naturalness — as, when they 
reappear in successive generations, constitute what we 
call family character. The sculptor found, moreover, on 
the evidence of some old portraits, that the physical fea¬ 
tures of the race had long been similar to what he now 
saw them in Donatello. With accumulating years, it is 
true, the Monte Beni face had a tendency to look grim 
and savage; and, in two or three instances, the family 
pictures glared at the spectator in the eyes like some 
surly animal, that had lost its good-humor when it out¬ 
lived its playfulness. 

The young count accorded his guest full liberty to in- 


6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


vestigate the personal annals of these pictured worthies, 
as well as all the rest of his progenitors; and ample 
materials were at hand in many chests of worm-eaten 
papers and yellow parchments, that had been gathering 
into larger and dustier piles ever since the dark ages. 
But, to confess the truth, the information afforded by 
these musty documents was so much more prosaic than 
what Kenyon acquired from Tomaso’s legends, that even 
the superior authenticity of the former could not recon¬ 
cile him to its dulness. 

What especially delighted the sculptor, was the anal¬ 
ogy between Donatello’s character, as he himself knew 
it, and those peculiar traits which the old butler’s narra¬ 
tive assumed to have been long hereditary in the race. 
He was amused at finding, too, that not only Tomaso 
but the peasantry of the estate and neighboring village 
recognized his friend as a genuine Monte Beni, of the 
original type. They seemed to cherish a great affection 
for the young count, and were full of stories about his 
sportive childhood; how he had played among the lit¬ 
tle rustics, and been at once the wildest and the sweetest 
of them all; and how, in his very infancy, he had plunged 
into the deep pools of the streamlets and never been 
drowned, and had clambered to the topmost branches 
of tall trees without ever breaking his neck. No such 
mischance could happen to the sylvan child, because, 
handling all the elements of nature so fearlessly and 
freely, nothing had either the power or the will to do 
him harm. 

He grew up, said these humble friends, the playmate 
not only of all mortal kind, but of creatures of the woods ; 
although, when Kenyon pressed them for some particu¬ 
lars of this latter mode of companionship, they could 
remember little more than a few anecdotes of a pet fox, 
which used to growl and snap at everybody save Dona¬ 
tello himself. 

But they enlarged — and never were weary of the 
theme — upon the blithesome effects of Donatello’s 
presence in his rosy childhood and budding youth. 
Their hovels had always glowed like sunshine when he 


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI 7 


entered them ; so that, as the peasants expressed it, their 
young master had never darkened a door-way in his life. 
He was the soul of vintage festivals. While he was a 
mere infant, scarcely able to run alone, it had been the 
custom to make him tread the wine-press with his tender 
little feet, if it were only to crush one cluster of the 
grapes. And the grape-juice that gushed beneath his 
childish tread, be it ever so small in quantity, sufficed to 
impart a pleasant flavor to a whole cask of wine. The 
race of Monte Beni — so these rustic chroniclers assured 
the sculptor — had possessed the gift from the oldest of 
old times of expressing good wine from ordinary grapes, 
and a ravishing liquor from the choice growth of their 
vineyard. 

In a word, as he listened to such tales as these, Ken¬ 
yon could have imagined that the valleys and hill-sides 
about him were a veritable Arcadia, and that Donatello 
was not merely a sylvan faun, but the genial wine-god 
in his very person. Making many allowances for the 
poetic fancies of Italian peasants, he set it down for 
fact, that his friend, in a simple way, and among rustic 
folks, had been an exceedingly delightful fellow in his 
younger days. 

But the contadini sometimes added, shaking their 
heads and sighing, that the young count was sadly 
changed since he went to Rome. The village girls 
now missed the merry smile with which he used to 
greet them. 

The sculptor inquired of his good friend Tomaso, 
whether he, too, had noticed the shadow which was said 
to have recently fallen over Donatello’s life. 

“ Ah, yes, signor! ” answered the old butler, “ it .is 
even so, since he came back from that wicked and mis¬ 
erable city. The world has grown either too evil, or 
else too wise and sad, for such men as the old Counts 
of Monte Beni used to be. His very first taste of it, as 
you see, has changed and spoilt my poor young lord. 
There had not been a single count in the family these 
hundred years and more, who was so true a Monte Beni, 
of the antique stamp, as this poor signorino; and now 


8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


it brings the tears into my eyes to hear him sighing 
over a cup of Sunshine ! Ah, it is a sad world now ! ” 

“ Then you think there was a merrier world once ? ” 
asked Kenyon. 

“ Surely, signor,” said Tomaso; “ a merrier world, 
and merrier Counts of Monte Beni to live in it! Such 
tales of them as I have heard, when I was a child on 
my grandfather’s knee! The good old man remem¬ 
bered a lord of Monte Beni — at least, he had heard of 
such a one, though I will not make oath upon the holy 
crucifix that my gVandsire lived in his time — who used 
to go into the woods and call pretty damsels out of the 
fountains, and out of the trunks of the old trees. That 
merry lord was known to dance with them a whole long 
summer afternoon! When shall we see such frolics in 
our days ? ” 

“ Not soon, I am afraid,” acquiesced the sculptor. 
“ You are right, excellent Tomaso; the world is sadder 
now! ” 

And, in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild 
fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the 
once genial earth produces, in every successive genera¬ 
tion, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding 
ones. Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of 
human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened 
era — on the contrary, they never before were nearly so 
abundant — but that mankind are getting so far beyond 
the childhood of their race that they scorn to be happy 
any longer. A simple and joyous character can find no 
place for itself among the sage and sombre figures that 
would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to shame. 
The entire system of man’s affairs, as at present estab¬ 
lished, is built up purposely to exclude the careless and 
happy soul. The very children would upbraid the 
wretched individual who should endeavor to take life 
and the world as — what we might naturally suppose 
them meant for—a place and opportunity for enjoyment. 

It is the iron rule in our day to require an object and 
a purpose in life. It makes us all parts of a complicated 
scheme of progress, which can only result in our arrival 


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI 


9 


at a colder and drearier region than we were born in. 
It insists upon everybody’s adding somewhat — a mite, 
perhaps, but earned by incessant effort — to an accumu¬ 
lated pile of usefulness, of which the only use will be, 
to burden our posterity with even heavier thoughts and 
more inordinate labor than our own. No life now wan¬ 
ders like an unfettered stream; there is a mill-wheel for 
the tiniest rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too 
strenuous a resolution to go all right. 

Therefore it was — so, at least, the sculptor thought, 
although partly suspicious of Donatello’s darker misfor¬ 
tune — that the young count found it impossible nowa¬ 
days to be what his forefathers had been. He could not 
live their healthy life of animal spirits, in their sympathy 
with nature and brotherhood with all that breathed 
around them. Nature, in beast, fowl, and tree, and earth, 
flood, and sky, is what it was of old; but sin, care, and 
self-consciousness have set the human portion of the 
world askew ; and thus the simplest character is ever 
the soonest to go astray. 

“ At any rate, Tofriaso,” said Kenyon, doing his best 
to comfort the old man, “ let us hope that your young 
lord will still enjoy himself at vintage-time. By the 
aspect of the vineyard, I judge that this will be a famous 
year for the golden wine of Monte Beni. As long as 
your grapes produce that admirable liquor, sad as you 
think the world, neither the count nor his guests will 
quite forget to smile.” 

“Ah, signor,” rejoined the butler, with a sigh, “but 
he scarcely wets his lips with the sunny juice.” 

“ There is yet another hope,” observed Kenyon ; “ the 
young count may fall in love, and bring home a fair and 
laughing wife to chase the gloom out of yonder old, 
frescoed saloon. Do you think he could do a better 
thing, my good Tomaso ? ” 

“ Maybe not, signor,” said the sage butler, looking 
earnestly at him ; “ and, maybe, not a worse! ” 

The sculptor fancied that the good old man had it 
partly in his mind to make some remark, or communicate 
some fact, which, on second thoughts, he resolved to 


TO 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


keep concealed in his own breast. He now took his 
departure cellarward, shaking his white head and mut¬ 
tering to himself, and did not reappear till dinner-time, 
when he favored Kenyon, whom he had taken far into 
his good graces, with a choicer flask of Sunshine than 
had yet blessed his palate. 

To say the truth, this golden wine was no unneces¬ 
sary ingredient towards making the life of Monte Beni 
palatable. It seemed a pity that Donatello did not drink 
a little more of it, and go jollily to bed at least, even if 
he should awake with an accession of darker melancholy 
the next morning. 

Nevertheless, there was no lack of outward means 
for leading an agreeable life in the old villa. Wandering 
musicians haunted the precincts of Monte Beni, where 
they seemed to claim a prescriptive right; they made 
the lawn and shrubbery tuneful with the sound of fiddle, 
harp, and flute, and now and then with the tangled 
squeaking of a bagpipe. Improvvisatori likewise came 
and told tales or recited verses to the contadini — among 
whom Kenyon often was an auditor — after their day’s 
work in the vineyard. Jugglers, too, obtained permis¬ 
sion to do feats of magic in the hall, where they set 
even the sage Tomaso, and Stella, Girolamo, and the 
peasant girls from the farm-house, all of a broad grin, 
between merriment and wonder. These good people 
got food and lodging for their pleasant pains, and some 
of the small wine of Tuscany, and a reasonable handful 
of the Grand Duke’s copper coin, to keep up the hos¬ 
pitable renown of Monte Beni. But very seldom had 
they the young count as a listener, or a spectator. 

There were sometimes dances by moonlight on the 
lawn, but never since he came from Rome did Dona¬ 
tello’s presence deepen the blushes of the pretty conta- 
dinas, or his footstep weary out the most agile partner 
or competitor as once it was sure to do. 

Paupers — for this kind of vermin infested the house 
of Monte Beni worse than any other spot in beggar- 
haunted Italy—stood beneath all the windows, making 
loud supplication, or even establishing themselves on 


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI n 


the marble steps of the grand entrance. They ate and 
drank, and filled their bags, and pocketed the little 
money that was given them, and went forth on their 
devious ways, showering blessings innumerable on the 
mansion and its lord, and on the souls of his deceased 
forefathers, who had always been just such simpletons 
as to be compassionate to beggary. But, in spite of 
their favorable prayers — by which Italian philanthro¬ 
pists set great store-—a cloud seemed to hang over 
these once Arcadian precincts, and to be darkest around 
the summit of the tower where Donatello was wont to 
sit and brood. 


CHAPTER II 


MYTHS 


FTER the sculptor’s arrival, however, the young 



count sometimes came down from his forlorn eleva¬ 


tion, and rambled with him among the neighboring woods 
and hills. He led his friend to many enchanting nooks, 
with which he himself had been familiar in his childhood. 
But of late, as he remarked to Kenyon, a sort of strange¬ 
ness had overgrown them, like clusters of dark shrub¬ 
bery, so that he hardly recognized the places which he 
had known and loved so well. 

To the sculptor’s eye, nevertheless, they were still rich 
with beauty. They were picturesque in that sweetly im¬ 
pressive way, where wildness, in a long lapse of years, 
has crept over scenes that have been once adorned with 
the careful art and toil of man ; and when man could 
do no more for them, time and nature came, and wrought 
hand in hand to bring them to a soft and venerable per¬ 
fection. There grew the fig-tree that had run wild and 
taken to wife the vine, which likewise had gone rampant 
out of all human control; so that the two wild things 
had tangled and knotted themselves into a wild marriage- 
bond, and hung their various progeny — the luscious 
figs, the grapes, oozy with the southern juice, and both 
endowed with a wild flavor that added the final charm — 
on the same bough together. 

In Kenyon’s opinion, never was any other nook so 
lovely as a certain little dell which he and Donatello 
visited. It was hollowed in among the hills, and open to 
a glimpse of the broad, fertile valley. A fountain had 
its birth here, and fell into a marble basin, which was all 
covered with moss and shaggy with water-weeds. Over 
the gush of the small stream, with an urn in her arms, 
stood a marble nymph, whose nakedness the moss had 


12 


MYTHS 


l 3 


kindly clothed as with a garment; and the long trails and 
tresses of the maidenhair had done what they could in 
the poor thing’s behalf, by hanging themselves about her 
waist. Informer days — it might be a remote antiquity 
— this lady of the fountain had first received the infant 
tide into her urn and poured it thence into the marble 
basin. But now the sculptured urn had a great crack 
from top to bottom; and the discontented nymph was 
compelled to see the basin fill itself through a channel 
which she could not control, although with water long 
ago consecrated to her. 

For this reason, or some other, she looked terribly 
forlorn; and you might have fancied that the whole 
fountain was but the overflow of her lonely tears. 

“This was a place that I used greatly to delight in,” 
remarked Donatello, sighing. “As a child, and as a 
boy, I have been very happy here.” 

“ And, as a man, I should ask no fitter place to be 
happy in,” answered Kenyon. “ But you, my friend, 
are of such a social nature, that I should hardly have 
thought these lonely haunts would take your fancy. It 
is a place for a poet to dream in, and people it with the 
beings of his imagination.” 

“ I am no poet that I know of,” said Donatello, “but 
yet, as I tell you, I have been very happy here, in the 
company of this fountain and this nymph. It is said 
that a Faun, my oldest forefather, brought home hither 
to this very spot a human maiden, whom he loved and 
wedded. This spring of delicious water was their house¬ 
hold well.” 

“ It is a most enchanting fable ! ” exclaimed Kenyon ; 
“ that is, if it be not a fact.” 

“ And why not a fact ? ” said the simple Donatello. 
“ There is likewise another sweet old story connected 
with this spot. But, now that I remember it, it seems 
to me more sad than sweet, though formerly the sorrow, 
in which it closes, did not so much impress me. If I 
had the gift of tale-telling, this one would be sure to 
interest you mightily.” 

“ Pray tell it,” said Kenyon ; “ no matter whether well 


14 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


or ill. These wild legends have often the most powerful 
charm when least artfully told/’ 

So the young count narrated a myth of one of his pro¬ 
genitors, — he might have lived a century ago, or a thou¬ 
sand years, or before the Christian epoch, for anything 
that Donatello knew to the contrary, — who had made 
acquaintance with a fair creature belonging to this foun¬ 
tain. Whether woman or sprite was a mystery, as was 
all else about her, except that her life and soul were 
somehow interfused throughout the gushing water. She 
was a fresh, cool, dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, full 
of pleasant little mischiefs, fitful and changeable with 
the whim of the moment, but yet as constant as her 
native stream, which kept the same gush and flow for¬ 
ever, while marble crumbled over and around it. The 
fountain woman loved the youth, — a knight, as Dona¬ 
tello called him, — for, according to the legend, his race 
was akin to hers. At least, whether kin or no, there 
had been friendship and sympathy of old betwixt an 
ancestor of his, with furry ears, and the long-lived lady 
of the fountain. And, after all those ages, she was still 
as young as a May morning, and as frolicsome as a bird 
upon a tree, or a breeze that makes merry with the leaves. 

She taught him how to call her from her pebbly source, 
and they spent many a happy hour together, more espe¬ 
cially in the fervor of the summer days. For often as 
he sat wailing for her by the margin of the spring, she 
would suddenly fall down around him in a shower of 
sunny raindrops, with a rainbow glancing through them, 
and forthwith gather herself up into the likeness of a 
beautiful girl, laughing—or was it the warble of the 
rill over the pebbles ? — to see the youth’s amazement. 

Thus, kind maiden that she was, the hot atmosphere 
became deliciously cool and fragrant for this favored 
knight; and, furthermore, when he knelt down to drink 
out of the spring, nothing was more common than for a 
pair of rosy lips to come up out of its little depths, and 
touch his mouth with the thrill of a sweet, cool, dewy 
kiss! 

“It is a delightful story for the hot noon of your 


MYTHS 


T 5 


Tuscan summer,” observed the sculptor, at this point. 
“ But the deportment of the watery lady must have had 
a most chilling influence in midwinter. Her lover would 
find it, very literally, a cold reception! ” 

“I suppose,” said Donatello, rather sulkily, “you are 
making fun of the story. But I see nothing laughable 
in the thing itself, nor in what you say about it.” 

He went on to relate, that for a long while the knight 
found infinite pleasure and comfort in the friendship of 
the fountain nymph. In his merriest hours, she gladdened 
him with her sportive humor. If ever he was annoyed 
with earthly trouble, she laid her moist hand upon his 
brow, and charmed the fret and fever quite away. 

But one day — one fatal noontide — the young knight 
came rushing with hasty and irregular steps to the ac¬ 
customed fountain. He called the nymph; but — no 
doubt because there was something unusual and fright¬ 
ful in his tone — she did not appear, nor answer him. 
He flung himself down, and washed his hands and bathed 
his feverish brow in the cool, pure water. And then, 
there was a sound of woe; it might have been a woman’s 
voice; it might have been only the sighing of the brook 
over the pebbles. The water shrank away from the 
youth’s hands, and left his brow as dry and feverish 
as before. 

Donatello here came to a dead pause. 

“Why did the water shrink from this unhappy knight?” 
inquired the sculptor. 

“ Because he had tried to wash off a blood-stain! ” 
said the young count, in a horror-stricken whisper. 
“ The guilty man had polluted the pure water. The 
nymph might have comforted him in sorrow, but could 
not cleanse his conscience of a crime.” 

“ And did he never behold her more ? ” asked Kenyon. 

“ Never but once,” replied his friend. “ He never 
beheld her blessed face but once again, and then there 
was a blood-stain on the poor nymph’s brow; it was the 
stain his guilt had left in the fountain where he tried to 
wash it off. He mourned for her his whole life long, 
and employed the best sculptor of the time to carve this 


6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


statue of the nymph from his description of her aspect. 
But, though my ancestor would fain have had the image 
wear her happiest look, the artist, unlike yourself, was 
so impressed with the mournfulness of the story, that, 
in spite of his best efforts, he made her forlorn, and for¬ 
ever weeping, as you see ! ” 

Kenyon found a certain charm in this simple legend. 
Whether so intended or not, he understood it as an apo¬ 
logue, typifying the soothing and genial effects of an 
habitual intercourse with nature, in all ordinary cares 
and griefs; while, on the other hand, her mild influences 
fall short in their effect upon the ruder passions, and 
are altogether powerless in the dread fever-fit or deadly 
chill of guilt. 

“ Do you say,” he asked, “that the nymph’s face has 
never since been shown to any mortal ? Methinks, you, 
by your native qualities, are as well entitled to her favor 
as ever your progenitor could have been. Why have 
you not summoned her?” 

“ I called her often when I was a silly child,” answered 
Donatello ; and he added, in an inward voice, — “ Thank 
Heaven, she did not come! ” 

“ Then you never saw her ? ” said the sculptor. 

“Never in my life!” rejoined the count. “No, my 
dear friend, I have not seen the nymph ; although here, 
by her fountain, I used to make many strange acquaint¬ 
ances ; for, from my earliest childhood, I was familiar 
with whatever creatures haunt the woods. You would 
have laughed to see the friends I had among them ; yes, 
among the wild, nimble things, that reckon man their 
deadliest enemy! How it was first taught me, I cannot 
tell; but there was a charm — a voice, a murmur, a kind 
of chant — by which I called the woodland inhabitants, 
the furry people, and the feathered people, in a language 
that they seemed to understand.” 

“ I have heard of such a gift,” responded the sculptor 
gravely, “ but never before met with a person endowed 
with it. Pray, try the charm; and lest I should frighten 
your friends away, I will withdraw into this thicket, and 
merely peep at them.” 


MYTHS 


i7 


“ I doubt,” said Donatello, “ whether they will remem¬ 
ber my voice now. It changes, you know, as the boy 
grows towards manhood.” 

Nevertheless, as the young count’s good-nature and 
easy persuadability were among his best characteristics, 
he set about complying with Kenyon’s request. The lat¬ 
ter, in his concealment among the shrubberies, heard him 
send forth a sort of modulated breath, wild, rude, yet har¬ 
monious. It struck the auditor as at once the strangest 
and the most natural utterance that had ever reached his 
ears. Any idle boy, it should seem, singing to himself, 
and setting his wordless song to no other or more definite 
tune than the play of his own pulses, might produce a 
sound almost identical with this ; and yet, it was as indi¬ 
vidual as a murmur of the breeze. Donatello tried it, 
over and over again, with many breaks, at first, and 
pauses of uncertainty; then with more confidence, and a 
fuller swell, like a wayfarer groping out of obscurity into 
the light, and moving with freer footsteps as it brightens 
around him. 

Anon, his voice appeared to fill the air, yet not with an 
obtrusive clangor. The sound was of a murmurous char¬ 
acter, soft, attractive, persuasive, friendly. The sculptor 
fancied that such might have been the original voice and 
utterance of the natural man, before the sophistication of 
the human intellect formed what we now call language. 
In this broad dialect—broad as the sympathies of nature 
— the human brother might have spoken to his inarticu¬ 
late brotherhood that prowl the woods, or soar upon the 
wing, and have been intelligible, to such extent as to win 
their confidence. 

The sound had its pathos too. At some of its simple 
cadences, the tears came quietly into Kenyon’s eyes. 
They welled up slowly from his heart, which was thrill¬ 
ing with an emotion more delightful than he had often 
felt before, but which he forbore to analyze, lest, if he 
seized it, it should at once perish in his grasp. 

Donatello paused two or three times, and seemed to 
listen, then, recommencing, he poured his spirit and life 
more earnestly into the strain. And, finally, — or else 


i8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


the sculptor’s hope and imagination deceived him, — soft 
treads were audible upon the fallen leaves. There was 
a rustling among the shrubbery; a whir of wings, more¬ 
over, that hovered in the air. It may have been all an 
illusion; but Kenyon fancied that he would distinguish 
the stealthy, cat-like movement of some small forest citi¬ 
zen, and that he could even see its doubtful shadow, if 
not really its substance. But, all at.once, whatever might 
be the reason, there ensued a hurried rush and scamper 
of little feet; and then the sculptor heard a wild, sorrow¬ 
ful cry, and through the crevices of the thicket beheld 
Donatello fling himself on the ground. 

Emerging from his hiding-place, he saw no living 
thing, save a brown lizard (it was of the tarantula species) 
rustling away through the sunshine. To all present 
appearance, this venomous reptile was the only creature 
that had responded to the young count’s efforts to renew 
his intercourse with the lower orders of nature. 

“What has happened to you?” exclaimed Kenyon, 
stooping down over his friend, and wondering at the an¬ 
guish which he betrayed. 

“ Death, death ! ” sobbed Donatello. “ They know 
it!” 

He grovelled beside the fountain, in a fit of such pas¬ 
sionate sobbing and weeping, that it seemed as if his heart 
had broken, and spilt its wild sorrows upon the ground. 
His unrestrained grief and childish tears made Ken¬ 
yon sensible in how small a degree the customs and re¬ 
straints of society had really acted upon this young man, 
in spite of the quietude of his ordinary deportment. In 
response to his friend’s efforts to console him, he mur¬ 
mured words hardly more articulate than the strange 
chant, which he had so recently been breathing into the 
air. 

“ They know it! ” was all that Kenyon could yet dis¬ 
tinguish. “ They know it! ” 

“ Who know it ? ” asked the sculptor. “ And what is 
it they know ? ” 

“ They know it! ” repeated Donatello, trembling. 
“ They shun me! All nature shrinks from me, and 


MYTHS 


l 9 


shudders at me! I live in the midst of a curse, that 
hems me round with a circle of fire ! No innocent thing 
can come near me.” 

“ Be comforted, my dear friend,” said Kenyon, kneel¬ 
ing beside him. “You labor under some illusion, but no 
curse. As for this strange, natural spell, which you have 
been exercising, and of which I have heard before, though 
I never believed in, nor expected to witness it, I am sat¬ 
isfied that you still possess it. It was my own half- 
concealed presence, no doubt, and some involuntary little 
movement of mine, that scared away your forest friends.” 

“They are friends of mine no longer,” answered Do¬ 
natello. 

“We all of us, as we grow older,” rejoined Kenyon, 
“ lose somewhat of our proximity to nature. It is the 
price we pay for experience.” 

“ A heavy price, then! ” said Donatello, rising from 
the ground. “But we will speak no more of it. Forget 
this scene, my dear friend. In your eyes, it must look 
very absurd. It is a grief, I presume, to all men, to find 
the pleasant privileges and properties of early life de¬ 
parting from them. That grief has now befallen me. 
Well; I shall waste no more tears for such a cause! ” 

Nothing else made Kenyon so sensible of a change in 
Donatello, as his newly acquired power of dealing with 
his own emotions, and, after a struggle more or less 
fierce, thrusting them down into the prison-cells where 
he usually kept them confined. The restraint which he 
now put upon himself, and the mask of dull composure 
which he succeeded in clasping over his still beautiful 
and once faun-like face, affected the sensitive sculptor 
more sadly than even the unrestrained passion of the 
preceding scene. It is a very miserable epoch, when 
the evil necessities of life, in our tortuous world, first 
get the better of us so far as to compel us to attempt 
throwing a cloud over our transparency. Simplicity in¬ 
creases in value the longer we can keep it, and the 
farther we carry it onward into life; the loss of a child’s 
simplicity, in the inevitable lapse of years, causes but a 
natural sigh or two, because even his mother feared that 


20 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


he could not keep it always. But after a young man 
has brought it through his childhood, and has still worn 
it in his bosom, not as an early dew-drop, but as a dia¬ 
mond of pure, white lustre, — it is a pity to lose it, then. 
And thus, when Kenyon saw how much his friend had 
now to hide, and how well he hid it, he would have wept, 
although his tears would have been even idler than those 
which Donatello had just shed. 

They parted on the lawn before the house, the count 
to climb his tower, and the sculptor to read an antique 
edition of Dante, which he had found among some old 
volumes of Catholic devotion, in a seldom-visited room. 
Tomaso met him in the entrance hall, and showed a 
desire to speak. 

“ Our poor signorino looks very sad to-day ! ” he said. 

“ Even so, good Tomaso,” replied the sculptor. 
“Would that we could raise his spirits a little!” 

“There might be means, signor,” answered the old 
butler, “if one might but be sure that they were the 
right ones. We men are but rough nurses for a sick 
body or a sick spirit.” 

“ Women, you would say, my good friend, are better,” 
said the sculptor, struck by an intelligence in the butler’s 
face. “ That is possible ! But it depends.” 

“Ah ; we will wait a little longer,” said Tomaso, with 
the customary shake of his head. 


CHAPTER III 


THE OWL TOWER 

“XX 7ILL you not show me your tower?” said the 
VV sculptor one day to his friend. 

“ It is plainly enough to be seen, methinks,” answered 
the count, with a kind of sulkiness that often appeared in 
him, as one of the little symptoms of inward trouble. 

“Yes; its exterior is visible far and wide,” said Ken¬ 
yon. “ But such a gray, moss-grown tower as this, how¬ 
ever valuable as an object of scenery, will certainly be 
quite as interesting inside as out. It cannot be less than 
six hundred years old; the foundations and lower story 
are much older than that, I should judge; and traditions 
probably cling to the walls within quite as plentifully as 
the gray and yellow lichens cluster on its face without.” 

“No doubt,” replied Donatello; “but I know little of 
such things, and never could comprehend the interest 
which some of you Forestieri take in them. A year or 
two ago an English signor with a venerable white beard 
— they say he was a magician, too — came hither from 
as far off as Florence, just to see my tower.” 

“ Ah, I have seen him at Florence,” observed Ken¬ 
yon. “ He is a necromancer, as you say, and dwells in 
an old mansion of the Knights Templars, close by the 
Ponte Vecchio, with a great many ghostly books, pic¬ 
tures, and antiquities, to make the house gloomy, and one 
bright-eyed little girl to keep it cheerful! ” 

“ I know him only by his white beard,” said Dona¬ 
tello ; “ but he could have told you a great deal about 
the tower, and the sieges which it has stood, and the 
prisoners who have been confined in it. And he gathered 
up all the traditions of the Monte Beni family, and, among 
the rest, the sad one which I told you at the fountain the 

21 


22 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


other day. He had known mighty poets, he said, in his 
earlier life ; and the most illustrious of them would have 
rejoiced to preserve such a legend in immortal rhyme-— 
especially if he could have had some of our wine of Sun¬ 
shine to help out his inspiration ! ” 

“ Any man might be a poet, as well as Byron, with 
such wine and such a theme,” rejoined the sculptor. 
“ But, shall we climb your tower ? The thunderstorm 
gathering yonder among the hills will be a spectacle 
worth witnessing.” 

“ Come, then,” said the count, adding, with a sigh, 
“ it has a weary staircase, and dismal chambers, and it is 
very lonesome at the summit! ” 

“ Like a man’s life, when he has climbed to eminence,” 
remarked the sculptor; “ or, let us rather say, with its 
difficult steps, and the dark prison-cells you speak of, 
your tower resembles the spiritual experience of many 
a sinful soul, which, nevertheless, may struggle upward 
into the pure air and light of Heaven at last! ” 

Donatello sighed again, and led the way up into the 
tower. 

Mounting the broad staircase that ascended from the 
entrance hall, they traversed the great wilderness of a 
house, through some obscure passages, and came to a 
low, ancient door-way. It admitted them to a narrow 
turret-stair which zigzagged upward, lighted in its prog¬ 
ress by loopholes and iron-barred windows. Reaching 
the top of the first flight, the count threw open a door of 
worm-eaten oak, and disclosed a chamber that occupied 
the whole area of the tower. It was most pitiably for¬ 
lorn of aspect, with a brick-paved floor, bare holes 
through the massive walls, grated with iron, instead of 
windows, and for furniture an old stool, which increased 
the dreariness of the place tenfold, by suggesting an 
idea of its having once been tenanted. 

“ This was a prisoner’s cell in the old days,” said 
Donatello; “the white-bearded necromancer, of whom 
I told you, found out that a certain famous monk was 
confined here, about five hundred years ago. He was 
a very holy man, and was afterwards burned at the stake 


THE OWL TOWER 


23 


in the Grand-ducal Square at Firenze. There have 
always been stories, Tomaso says, of a hooded monk 
creeping up and down these stairs, or standing in the 
door-way of this chamber. It must needs be the ghost 
of the ancient prisoner. Do you believe in ghosts ? ” 

“ I can hardly tell,” replied Kenyon ; “ on the whole, 
I think not.” 

“Neither do I,” responded the count; “for, if spirits 
ever come back, I should surely have met one within 
these two months past. Ghosts never rise ! So much 
I know, and am glad to know it! ” 

Following the narrow staircase still higher, they came 
to another room of similar size and equally forlorn, but 
inhabited by two personages of a race which from time 
immemorial have held proprietorship and occupancy in 
ruined towers. These were a pair of owls, who, being 
doubtless acquainted with Donatello, showed little sign of 
alarm at the entrance of visitors. They gave a dismal 
croak or two, and hopped aside into the darkest corner ; 
since it was not yet their hour to flap duskily abroad. 

“ They do not desert me, like my other feathered 
acquaintances,” observed the young count, with a sad 
smile, alluding to the scene which Kenyon had witnessed 
at the fountain side. “ When I was a wild, playful boy, 
the owls did not love me half so well.” 

He made no further pause here, but led his friend up 
another flight of steps ; while, at every stage, the win¬ 
dows and narrow loopholes afforded Kenyon more 
extensive eyeshots over hill and valley, and allowed him 
to taste the cool purity of mid-atmosphere. At length 
they reached the topmost chamber, directly beneath the 
roof of the tower. 

“ This is my own abode,” said Donatello; “ my own 
owl’s nest.” 

In fact, the room was fitted up as a bedchamber, 
though in a style of the utmost simplicity. It likewise 
served as an oratory; there being a crucifix in one cor¬ 
ner, and a multitude of holy emblems, such as Catholics 
judge it necessary to help their devotion withal. Several 
ugly little prints, representing the sufferings of the Sav- 


24 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


iour, and the martyrdoms of saints, hung on the wall; 
and, behind the crucifix, there was a good copy of 
Titian’s Magdalen of the Pitti Palace, clad only in the 
flow of her golden ringlets. She had a confident look, 
(but it was Titian’s fault, not the penitent woman’s,) as 
if expecting to win heaven by the free display of her 
earthly charms. Inside of a glass case, appeared an 
image of the sacred Bambino, in the guise of a little 
waxen boy, very prettily made, reclining among flowers, 
like a Cupid, and holding up a heart that resembled a 
bit of red sealing-wax. A small vase of precious marble 
was full of holy water. 

Beneath the crucifix, on a table, lay a human skull, 
which looked as if it might have been dug up out of 
some old grave. But, examining it more closely, Ken¬ 
yon saw that it was carved in gray alabaster, most skil¬ 
fully done to the death, with accurate imitation of the 
teeth, the sutures, the empty eye-caverns, and the fragile 
little bones of the nose. This hideous emblem rested 
on a cushion of white marble, so nicely wrought that 
you seemed to see the impression of the heavy skull in 
a silken and downy substance. 

Donatello dipped his fingers into the holy-water vase, 
and crossed himself. After doing so, he trembled. 

“ I have no right to make the sacred symbol on a sin¬ 
ful breast! ” he said. 

“ On what mortal breast can it be made then ? ” asked 
the sculptor. “ Is there one that hides no sin ? ” 

“ But these blessed emblems make you smile, I fear,” 
resumed the count, looking askance at his friend. “You 
heretics, I know, attempt to pray without even a crucifix 
to kneel at.” 

“ I, at least, whom you call a heretic, reverence that 
holy symbol,” answered Kenyon. “What I am most 
inclined to murmur at, is this death’s head. I could 
laugh, moreover, in its ugly face ! It is absurdly mon¬ 
strous, my dear friend, thus to fling the dead weight 
of our mortality upon our immortal hopes. While we 
live on earth, ’t is true, we must needs carry our skeletons 
about with us ; but, for heaven’s sake, do not let us bur- 


THE OWL TOWER 


2 5 


den our spirits with them, in our feeble efforts to soar 
upward ! . Believe me, it will change the whole aspect 
of death, if you can once disconnect it, in your idea, with 
that corruption from which it disengages our higher part.” 

“ I do not well understand you,” said Donatello; and 
he took up the alabaster skull, shuddering, and evidently 
feeling it a kind of penance to touch it. " “ I only know 
that this skull has been in my family for centuries. Old 
Tomaso has a story that it was copied by a famous sculp¬ 
tor from the skull of that same unhappy knight who 
loved the fountain-lady, and lost her by a blood-stain. 
He lived and died with a deep sense of sin upon him, 
and, on his death-bed, he ordained that this token of him 
should go down to his posterity. And my forefathers, 
being a cheerful race of men in their natural disposition, 
found it needful to have the skull often before their eyes, 
because they dearly loved life and its enjoyments, and 
hated the very thought of death.” 

“ I am afraid,” said Kenyon, “ they liked it none the 
better, for seeing its face under this abominable mask.” 

Without further discussion, the count led the way up 
one more flight of stairs, at the end of which they 
emerged upon the summit of the tower. The sculptor 
felt as if his being were suddenly magnified a hundred¬ 
fold; so wide was the Umbrian valley that suddenly 
opened before him, set in its grand framework of nearer 
and more distant hills. It seemed as if all Italy lay un¬ 
der his eyes in that one picture. For there was the 
broad, sunny smile of God, which we fancy to be spread 
over that favored land more abundantly than on other 
regions, and, beneath it, glowed a most rich and varied 
fertility. The trim vineyards were there, and the fig- 
trees, and the mulberries, and the smoky-hued tracts of 
the olive-orchards; there, too, were fields of every kind 
of grain, among which waved the Indian corn, putting 
Kenyon in mind of the fondly remembered acres of his 
father’s homestead. White villas, gray convents, church- 
spires, villages, towns, each with its battlemented walls 
and towered gateway, were scattered upon this spacious 
map; a river gleamed across it; and lakes opened their 


iG 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


blue eyes in its face, reflecting heaven, lest mortals 
should forget that better land, when they beheld the 
earth so beautiful. 

What made the valley look still wider, was the two or 
three varieties of weather that were visible on its surface, 
all at the same instant of time. Here lay the quiet sun¬ 
shine ; there fell the great black patches of ominous 
shadow from the clouds; and behind them, like a giant 
of league-long strides, came hurrying the thunderstorm, 
which had already swept midway across the plain. In 
the rear of the approaching tempest brightened forth 
again the sunny splendor, which its progress had dark¬ 
ened with so terrible a frown. 

All round this majestic landscape, the bald-peaked or 
forest-crowned mountains descended boldly upon the 
plain. On many of their spurs and midway declivities, 
and even on their summits, stood cities, some of them 
famous of old; for these had been the seats and nurser¬ 
ies of early art, where the flower of beauty sprang out 
of a rocky soil, and in a high, keen atmosphere, when 
the richest and most sheltered gardens failed to nourish it. 

“ Thank God for letting me again behold this scene ! ” 
said the sculptor, a devout man in his way, reverently 
taking off his hat. “ I have viewed it from many points, 
and never without as full a sensation of gratitude as my 
heart seems capable of feeling. How it strengthens the 
poor human spirit in its reliance on His providence, to 
ascend but this little way above the common level, and 
so attain a somewhat wider glimpse of His dealings with 
mankind! He doeth all things right! His will be 
done! ” 

“ You discern something that is hidden from me,” ob¬ 
served Donatello, gloomily, yet striving with unwonted 
grasp to catch the analogies which so cheered his friend. 
“ I see sunshine on one spot, and cloud in another, and 
no reason for it in either case. The slin on you; the 
cloud on me! What comfort can I draw from this ? ” 

“ Nay ; I cannot preach,” said Kenyon, “ with a page 
of heaven and a page of earth spread wide open before 
us ! Only begin to read it, and you will find it interpret- 


THE OWL TOWER 


27 


ing itself without the aid of words. It is a great mistake 
to try to put our best thoughts into human language. 
When we ascend into the higher regions of emotion and 
spiritual enjoyment, they are only expressible by such 
grand hieroglyphics as these around us.” 

They stood awhile, contemplating the scene; but, as 
inevitably happens after a spiritual flight, it was not 
long before the sculptor felt his wings flagging in the 
rarity of the upper atmosphere. He was glad to let 
himself quietly downward out of the mid-sky, as it were, 
and alight on the solid platform of the battlemented 
tower. He looked about him, and beheld growing out 
of the stone pavement which formed the roof, a little 
shrub, with green and glossy leaves. It was the only 
green thing there; and heaven knows how its seeds had 
ever been planted, at that airy height, or how it had 
found nourishment for its small life, in the chinks of the 
stones; for it had no earth, and nothing more like soil 
than the crumbling mortar, which had been crammed 
into the crevices in a long-past age. 

Yet the plant seemed fond of its native site; and 
Donatello said it had always grown there, from his ear¬ 
liest remembrance, and never, he believed, any smaller 
or any larger than they saw it now. 

“ I wonder if the shrub teaches you any good lesson,” 
said he, observing the interest with which Kenyon ex¬ 
amined it. “ If the wide valley has a great meaning, 
the plant ought to have at least a little one; and it has 
been growing on our tower long enough to have learned 
how to speak it.” 

“ Oh, certainly ! ” answered the sculptor ; “ the shrub 
has its moral, or it would have perished long ago. And, 
no doubt, it is for your use and edification, since you 
have had it before your eyes all your lifetime, and now 
are moved to ask what may be its lesson.” 

“ It teaches me nothing,” said the simple Donatello, 
stooping over the plant, and perplexing himself with a 
minute scrutiny. “ But here was a worm that would 
have killed it; an ugly creature, which I will fling over 
the battlements.” 


CHAPTER IV 


ON THE BATTLEMENTS 

T HE sculptor now looked through an embrasure, 
and threw down a bit of lime, watching its fall, 
till it struck upon a stone bench at the rocky founda¬ 
tion of the tower, and flew into many fragments. 

“ Pray pardon me for helping Time to crumble away 
your ancestral walls,” said he. “ But I am one of those 
persons who have a natural tendency to climb heights, 
and to stand on the verge of them, measuring the depth 
below. If I were to do just as I like, at this moment, 
I should fling myself down after that bit of lime. It is 
a very singular temptation, and all but irresistible; 
partly, I believe, because it might be so easily done, 
and partly because such momentous consequences would 
ensue, without my being compelled to wait a moment 
for them. Have you never felt this strange impulse of 
an evil spirit at your back, shoving you towards a preci¬ 
pice ? ” 

“ Ah, no ! ” cried Donatello, shrinking from the bat¬ 
tle mented wall with a face of horror. “ I cling to life 
in a way which you cannot conceive; it has been so 
rich, so warm, so sunny! — and beyond its verge, noth¬ 
ing but the chilly dark! And then a fall from a preci¬ 
pice is such an awful death ! ” 

“ Nay; if it be a great height,” said Kenyon, “a man 
would leave his life in the air, and never feel the hard 
shock at the bottom.” 

“That is not the way with this kind of death!” ex¬ 
claimed Donatello, in a low, horror-stricken voice, which 
grew higher and more full of emotion as he proceeded. 
“‘Imagine a fellow-creature, — breathing, now, and look¬ 
ing you in the face, — and now tumbling down, down, 

28 


ON THE BATTLEMENTS 


29 


down, with a long shriek wavering after him, all the 
way! He does not leave his life in the air! No; but 
it keeps in him till he thumps against the stones, a hor¬ 
ribly long while; then, he lies there frightfully quiet, a 
dead heap of bruised flesh and broken bones! A quiver 
runs through the crushed mass ; and no more movement 
after that! No; not if you would give your soul to 
make him stir a finger! Ah, terrible ! Yes, yes ; I would 
fain fling myself down for the very dread of it, that I 
might endure it once for all, and dream of it no more! ” 

“ How forcibly —how frightfully you conceive this ! ” 
said the sculptor, aghast at the passionate horror which 
was betrayed in the count’s words, and still more in his 
wild gestures and ghastly look. “Nay, if the height of 
your tower affects your imagination thus, you do wrong 
to trust yourself here in solitude, and in the night-time, 
and at all unguarded hours. You are not safe in your 
chamber. It is but a step or two; and what if a vivid 
dream should lead you up hither, at midnight, and act 
itself out as a reality! ” 

Donatello had hidden his face in his hands, and was 
leaning against the parapet. 

“ No fear of that! ” said he. “Whatever the dream 
may be, I am too genuine a coward to act out my own 
death in it.” 

The paroxysm passed away, and the two friends con¬ 
tinued their desultory talk, very much as if no such 
interruption had occurred. Nevertheless, it affected 
the sculptor with infinite pity to see this young man, 
who had been born to gladness as an assured heritage, 
now involved in a misty bewilderment of grievous 
thoughts, amid which he seemed to go staggering 
blindfold. Kenyon, not without an unshaped suspi¬ 
cion of the definite fact, knew that his condition must 
have resulted from the weight and gloom of life, now 
first, through the agency of a secret trouble, making 
themselves felt on a character that had heretofore 
breathed only an atmosphere of joy. The effect of 
this hard lesson, upon Donatello’s intellect and disposi¬ 
tion, was very striking. It was perceptible that he had 


30 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


already had glimpses of strange and subtle matters in 
those dark caverns, into which all men must descend, 
if they would know anything beneath the surface and 
illusive pleasures of existence. And when they emerge, 
though dazzled and blinded by the first glare of day¬ 
light, they take truer and sadder views of life forever 
afterwards. 

From some mysterious source, as the sculptor felt 
assured, a soul had been inspired into the young count’s 
simplicity, since their intercourse in Rome. He now 
showed a far deeper sense, and an intelligence that 
began to deal with high subjects, though in a feeble 
and childish way. He evinced, too, a more definite and 
nobler individuality, but developed out of grief and 
pain, and fearfully conscious of the pangs that had 
given it birth. Every human life, if it ascends to truth 
or delves down to reality, must undergo a similar change; 
but sometimes, perhaps, the instruction comes without 
the sorrow; and oftener the sorrow teaches no lesson 
that abides with us. In Donatello’s case, it was pitiful, 
and almost ludicrous, to observe the confused struggle 
that he made; how completely he was taken by surprise; 
how ill-prepared he stood, on this old battle-field of the 
world, to fight with such an inevitable foe as mortal 
calamity, and sin for its stronger ally. 

“And yet,” thought Kenyon, “the poor fellow bears 
himself like a hero, too! If he would only tell me his 
trouble, or give me an opening to speak frankly about 
it, I might help him; but he finds it too horrible to be 
uttered, and fancies himself the only mortal that ever 
felt the anguish of remorse. Yes; he believes that 
nobody ever endured his agony before ; so that — sharp 
enough in itself — it has all the additional zest of a tor¬ 
ture just invented to plague him individually.” 

The sculptor endeavored to dismiss the painful sub¬ 
ject from his mind; and, leaning against the battle¬ 
ments, he turned his face southward and westward, and 
gazed across the breadth of the valley. His thoughts 
flew far beyond even those wide boundaries, taking an 
air-line from Donatello’s tower to another turret that 


ON THE BATTLEMENTS 


3 


ascended into the sky of the summer afternoon, invis¬ 
ibly to him, above the roofs of distant Rome. Then rose 
tumultuously into his consciousness that strong love for 
Hilda, which it was his habit to confine in one of the 
heart’s inner chambers, because he had found no en¬ 
couragement to bring it forward. But now, he felt a 
strange pull at his heartstrings. It could not have been 
more perceptible, if all the way between these battle¬ 
ments and Hilda’s dove-cote, had stretched an exqui¬ 
sitely sensitive cord, which, at the hither end, was knotted 
with his aforesaid heartstrings, and, at the remoter one, 
was grasped by a gentle hand. His breath grew trem¬ 
ulous. He put his hand to his breast; so distinctly did 
he seem to feel that cord drawn once — and again, and 
again, as if — though still it was bashfully intimated — 
there were an importunate demand for his presence. 
Oh ! for the white wings of Hilda’s doves, that he 
might have flown thither, and alighted at the virgin’s 
shrine! 

But lovers, and Kenyon knew it well, project so lifelike 
a copy of their mistresses out of their own imaginations, 
that it can pull at the heartstrings almost as perceptibly 
as the genuine original. No airy intimations are to be 
trusted; no evidences of responsive affection less posi¬ 
tive than whispered and broken words, or tender press¬ 
ures of the hand, allowed and half-returned ; or glances, 
that distil many passionate avowals into one gleam of 
richly colored light. Even these should be weighed 
rigorously, at the instant; for, in another instant, the 
imagination seizes on them as its property, and stamps 
them with its own arbitrary value. But Hilda’s maidenly 
reserve had given her lover no such tokens to be inter¬ 
preted either by his hopes or fears. 

“Yonder, over mountain and valley, lies Rome,” said 
the sculptor; “ shall you return thither in the autumn ? ” 

“Never! I hate Rome,” answered Donatello ; “and 
have good cause.” 

“ And yet it was a pleasant winter that we spent there,” 
observed Kenyon, “ and with pleasant friends about us. 
You would meet them again there — all of them.” 


3^ 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ All ? ” asked Donatello. 

“ All, to the best of my belief,” said the sculptor; “ but 
you need not go to Rome to seek them. If there were 
one of those friends whose lifetime was twisted with your 
own, I am enough of a fatalist to feel assured that you 
will meet that one again, wander whither you may. 
Neither can we escape the companions whom Provi¬ 
dence assigns for us, by climbing an old tower like 
this.” 

“Yet the stairs are steep and dark,” rejoined the 
count; “ none but yourself would seek me here, or find 
me, if they sought.” 

As Donatello did not take advantage of this opening 
which his friend had kindly afforded him, to pour out his 
hidden troubles, the latter again threw aside the subject, 
and returned to the enjoyment of the scene before him. 
The thunderstorm, which he had beheld striding across 
the valley, had passed to the left of Monte Beni, and was 
continuing its march towards the hills that formed the 
boundary on the eastward. Above the whole valley, in¬ 
deed, the sky was heavy with tumbling vapors inter¬ 
spersed with which were tracts of blue, vividly brightened 
by the sun; but, in the east, where the tempest was yet 
trailing its ragged skirts, lay a dusky region of cloud and 
sullen mist, in which some of the hills appeared of a dark- 
purple hue. Others became so indistinct, that the spec¬ 
tator could not tell rocky height from impalpable cloud. 
Far into this misty cloud-region, however, — within the 
domain of chaos, as it were, — hill-tops were seen bright¬ 
ening in the sunshine ; they looked like fragments of the 
world, broken adrift and based on nothingness, or like 
portions of a sphere destined to exist, but not yet finally 
compacted. 

The sculptor, habitually drawing many of the images 
and illustrations of his thoughts from the plastic art, 
fancied that the scene represented the process of the 
Creator, when He held the new, imperfect earth in His 
hand, and modelled it. 

“What a magic is in mist and vapor among the 
mountains! ” he exclaimed. “ With their help, one 


ON THE BATTLEMENTS 


33 


single scene becomes a thousand. The cloud-scenery 
gives such variety to a hilly landscape that it would be 
worth while to journalize its aspect from hour to hour. 
A cloud, however, — as I have myself experienced, — is 
apt to grow solid and as heavy as a stone the instant that 
you take in hand to describe it. But, in my own heart, I 
have found great use in clouds. Such silvery ones as 
those to the northward, for example, have often suggested 
sculpturesque groups, figures, and attitudes; they are es¬ 
pecially rich in attitudes of living repose, which a sculp¬ 
tor only hits upon by the rarest good fortune. When I 
go back to my dear native land, the clouds along the 
horizon will be my only gallery of art! ” 

“ I can see cloud-shapes too,” said Donatello ; “ yonder 
is one that shifts strangely; it has been like people whom 
I knew. And now, if I watch it a little longer, it will 
take the figure of a monk reclining, with his cowl about 
his head and drawn partly over his face, and — well! 
did I not tell you so ? ” 

“ I think,” remarked Kenyon, “ we can hardly be gaz¬ 
ing at the same cloud. What I behold is a reclining 
figure, to be sure, but feminine, and with a despondent 
air, wonderfully well expressed in the wavering outline 
from head to foot. It moves my very heart by something 
indefinable that it suggests.” 

“ I see the figure, and almost the face,” said the count, 
adding, in a lower voice, “ It is Miriam’s! ” 

“ No, not Miriam’s,” answered the sculptor. 

While the two gazers thus found their own reminis¬ 
cences and presentiments floating among the clouds, the 
day drew to its close, and now showed them the fair spec¬ 
tacle of an Italian sunset. The sky was soft and bright, 
but not so gorgeous as Kenyon had seen it, a thousand 
times in America; for there the western sky is wont to be 
set aflame with breadths and depths of color, with which 
poets seek in vain to dye their verses, and which painters 
never dare to copy. As beheld from the Tower of Monte 
Beni, the scene was tenderly magnificent, with mild gra¬ 
dations of hue, and a lavish outpouring of gold, but rather 
such gold as we see on the leaf of a bright flower than the 



34 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


burnished glow of metal from the mine. Or, if metallic, 
it looked airy and unsubstantial, like the glorified dreams 
of an alchemist. And speedily—more speedily than in 
our own clime — came the twilight and, brightening 
through its gray transparency, the stars. 

A swarm of minute insects that had been hovering 
all day round the battlements were now swept awayTy 
the freshness of a rising breeze. The two owls in the 
chamber beneath Donatello’s uttered their soft, melan¬ 
choly cry, — which, with national avoidance of harsh 
sounds, Italian owls substitute for the hoot of their 
kindred in other countries, — and flew darkling forth 
among the shrubbery. A convent-bell rang out, near 
at hand, and was not only echoed among the hills, but 
answered by another bell, and still another, which doubt¬ 
less had farther and farther responses, at various dis¬ 
tances along the valley; for, like the English drum-beat 
around the globe, there is a chain of convent-bells from 
end to end, and cross-wise, and in all possible directions 
over priest-ridden Italy. 

“ Come,” said the sculptor, “ the evening air grows 
cool. It is time to descend.” 

“Time for you, my friend,” replied the count, and 
he hesitated a little before adding, “ I must keep a vigil 
here for some hours longer. It is my frequent custom 
to keep vigils; and sometimes the thought occurs to me 
whether it were not better to keep them in yonder con¬ 
vent, the bell of which just now seemed to summon me. 
Would I do wisely, do you think, to exchange this old 
tower for a cell ? ” 

“What! Turn monk?” exclaimed his friend. “A 
horrible idea! ” 

“True,” said Donatello, sighing. “Therefore, if at 
all, I purpose doing it.” 

“ Then think of it no more, for Heaven’s sake ! ” cried 
the sculptor. “ There are a thousand better and more 
poignant methods of being miserable than that, if to be 
miserable is what you wish. Nay; I question whether 
a monk keeps himself up to the intellectual and spiritual 
height which misery implies. A monk — I judge from 


ON THE BATTLEMENTS 


35 


their sensual physiognomies, which meet me at every 
turn — is inevitably a beast! Their souls, if they have 
any to begin with, perish out of them, before their slug¬ 
gish, swinish existence is half done. Better, a million 
times, to stand star-gazing on these airy battlements, 
than to smother your new germ of a higher life in a 
monkish cell! ” 

“You make me tremble,” said Donatello, “by your 
bold aspersion of men who have devoted themselves to 
God’s service! ” 

“They serve neither God nor man, and themselves 
least of all, though their motives be utterly selfish,” 
replied Kenyon. “ Avoid the convent, my dear friend, 
as you would shun the death of the soul! But, for my 
own part, if I had an insupportable burden, — if, for 
any cause, I were bent upon sacrificing every earthly 
hope as a peace-offering towards heaven, — I would 
make the wide world my cell, and good deeds to man¬ 
kind my prayer. Many penitent men have done this, 
and found peace in it.” 

“ Ah ! but you are a heretic ! ” said the count. 

Yet his face brightened beneath the stars; and, look¬ 
ing at it through the twilight, the sculptor’s remem¬ 
brance went back to that scene in the Capitol, where, 
both in features and expression, Donatello had seemed 
identical with the Faun. And still there was a resem¬ 
blance ; for now, when first the idea was suggested of 
living for the welfare of his fellow-creatures, the original 
beauty, which sorrow had partly effaced, came back ele¬ 
vated and spiritualized. In the black depths, the Faun 
had found a soul, and was struggling with it towards 
the light of heaven. 

The illumination, it is true, soon faded out of Dona¬ 
tello’s face. The idea of life-long and unselfish effort 
was too high to be received by him with more than a 
momentary comprehension. An Italian, indeed, seldom 
dreams of being philanthropic, except in bestowing alms 
among the paupers, who appeal to his beneficence at 
every step; nor does it occur to him that there are fitter 
modes of propitiating Heaven than by penances, pilgrim- 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


3 6 

ages, and offerings at shrines. Perhaps, too, their sys¬ 
tem has its share of moral advantages ; they, at all events, 
cannot well pride themselves, as our own more energetic 
benevolence is apt to do, upon sharing in the counsels 
of Providence and kindly helping out its otherwise im¬ 
practicable designs. 

And now the broad valley twinkled with lights, that 
glimmered through its duskiness, like the fire-flies in 
the garden of a Florentine palace. A gleam of light¬ 
ning from the rear of the tempest showed the circum¬ 
ference of hills, and the great space between, as the 
last cannon-flash of a retreating army reddens across 
the field where it has fought. The sculptor was on the 
point of descending the turret-stair, when, somewhere 
in the darkness that lay beneath them, a woman’s voice 
was heard, singing a low, sad strain. 

“ Hark! ” said he, laying his hand on Donatello’s 
arm. 

And Donatello had said “ Hark ! ” at the same instant. 

The song, if song it could be called, that had only a 
wild rhythm, and flowed forth in the fitful measure of a 
wind-harp, did not clothe itself in the sharp brilliancy 
of the Italian tongue. The words, so far as they could 
be distinguished, were German, and therefore unintel¬ 
ligible to the count, and hardly less so to the sculptor; 
being softened and molten, as it were, into the melan¬ 
choly richness of the voice that sung them. It was as 
the murmur of a soul bewildered amid the sinful gloom 
of earth, and retaining only enough memory of a better 
state to make sad music of the wail, which would else 
have been a despairing shriek. Never was there pro¬ 
founder pathos than breathed through that mysterious 
voice; it brought the tears into the sculptor’s eyes, with 
remembrances and forebodings of whatever sorrow he 
had felt or apprehended; it made Donatello sob, as 
chiming in with the anguish that he found unutterable, 
and giving it the expression which he vaguely sought. 

But, when the emotion was at its profoundest depth, 
the voice rose out of it, yet so gradually that a gloom 
seemed to pervade it, far upward from the abyss, and 


ON THE BATTLEMENTS 


37 


not entirely to fall away as it ascended into a higher 
and purer region. At last, the auditors would have 
fancied that the melody, with its rich sweetness all 
there, and much of its sorrow gone, was floating around 
the very summit of the tower. 

“ Donatello,” said the sculptor, when there was silence 
again, “ had that voice no message for your ear ? ” 

“ I dare not receive it,” said Donatello ; “ the anguish 
of which it spoke abides with me: the hope dies away 
with the breath that brought it hither. It is not good 
for me to hear that voice.” 

The sculptor sighed, and left the poor penitent keep¬ 
ing his vigil on the tower. 


CHAPTER V 
Donatello’s bust 


K ENYON, it will be remembered, had asked Dona¬ 
tello’s permission to model his bust. The work 
had now made considerable progress, and necessarily- 
kept the sculptor’s thoughts brooding much and often 
upon his host’s personal characteristics. These it was 
his difficult office to bring out from their depths, and 
interpret them to all men, showing them what they 
could not discern for themselves, yet must be compelled 
to recognize at a glance, on the surface of a block of 
marble. 

He had never undertaken a portrait-bust which gave 
him so much trouble as Donatello’s; not that there was 
any special difficulty in hitting the likeness, though even 
in this respect the grace and harmony of the features 
seemed inconsistent with a prominent expression of in¬ 
dividuality ; but he was chiefly perplexed how to make 
this genial and kind type of countenance the index of 
the mind within. His acuteness and his sympathies, 
indeed, were both somewhat at fault in their efforts to 
enlighten him as to the moral phase through which the 
count was now passing. If at one sitting he caught a 
glimpse of what appeared to be a genuine and perma¬ 
nent trait, it would probably be less perceptible on a 
second occasion, and perhaps have vanished entirely at 
a third. So evanescent a show of character threw the 
sculptor into despair; not marble or clay, but cloud and 
vapor was the material in which it ought to be repre¬ 
sented. Even the ponderous depression which con¬ 
stantly weighed upon Donatello’s heart could not compel 
him into the kind of repose which the plastic art requires. 
Hopeless of a good result, Kenyon gave up all pre- 
38 


DONATELLO’S BUST 


39 


conceptions about the character of his subject, and let 
his hands work uncontrolled with the clay, somewhat as 
a spiritual medium, while holding a pen, yields it to an 
unseen guidance other than that of her own will. Now 
and then he fancied that his plan was destined to be the 
successful one. A skill and insight beyond his con¬ 
sciousness seemed occasionally to take up the task. 
The mystery, the miracle, of imbuing an inanimate sub¬ 
stance with thought, feeling, and all the intangible at¬ 
tributes of the soul, appeared on the verge of being 
wrought. And now, as he flattered himself, the true 
image of his friend was about to emerge from the facile 
material, bringing with it more of Donatello’s character 
than the keenest observer could detect at any one mo¬ 
ment in the face of the original. Vain expectation! 
some touch, whereby the artist thought to improve or 
hasten the result, interfered with the design of his un¬ 
seen spiritual assistant, and spoilt the whole. There 
was still the moist, brown clay, indeed, and the features 
of Donatello, but without any semblance of intelligent 
and sympathetic life. 

“ The difficulty will drive me mad, I verily believe ! ” 
cried the sculptor, nervously. “ Look at the wretched 
piece of work yourself, my dear friend, and tell me 
whether you recognize any manner of likeness to your 
inner man ? ” 

“ None,” replied Donatello, speaking the simple truth. 
“ It is like looking a stranger in the face.” 

This frankly unfavorable testimony so wrought with 
the sensitive artist, that he fell into a passion with the 
stubborn image, and cared not what might happen to it 
thenceforward. Wielding that wonderful power which 
sculptors possess over moist clay, however refractory it 
may show itself in certain respects, he compressed, elon¬ 
gated, widened, and otherwise altered the features of 
the bust in mere recklessness, and at every change in¬ 
quired of the count whether the expression became 
anywise more satisfactory. 

“Stop!” cried Donatello, at last, catching the sculp¬ 
tor’s hand. “ Let it remain so ! ” 


4 o 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


By some accidental handling of the clay, entirely in¬ 
dependent of his own will, Kenyon had given the coun¬ 
tenance a distorted and violent look combining animal 
fierceness with intelligent hatred. Had Hilda or had 
Miriam seen the bust, with the expression which it had 
now assumed, they might have recognized Donatello’s 
face as they beheld it at that terrible moment when he 
held his victim over the edge of the precipice. 

“What have I done?” said the sculptor, shocked at 
his own casual production. “ It were a sin to let the 
clay which bears your features harden into a look like 
that. Cain never wore an uglier one.” 

“ For that very reason, let it remain ! ” answered the 
count, who had grown pale as ashes at the aspect of his 
crime, thus strangely presented to him in another of the 
many guises under which guilt stares the criminal in the 
face. “ Do not alter it! Chisel it, rather, in eternal 
marble ! I will set it up in my oratory and keep it con¬ 
tinually before my eyes. Sadder and more horrible is a 
face like this, alive with my own crime, than the dead 
skull which my forefathers handed down to me ! ” 

But, without in the least heeding Donatello’s remon¬ 
strances, the sculptor again applied his artful fingers to 
the clay, and compelled the bust to dismiss the expression 
that had so startled them both. 

“ Believe me,” said he, turning his eyes upon his friend, 
full of grave and tender sympathy, “ you know not 
what is requisite for your spiritual growth, seeking, as 
you do, to keep your soul perpetually in the unwhole¬ 
some region of remorse. It was needful for you to pass 
through that dark valley, but it is infinitely dangerous 
to linger there too long; there is poison in the atmos¬ 
phere, when we sit down and brood in it, instead of gird¬ 
ing up our loins to press onward. Not despondency, 
not slothful anguish, is what you now require — but 
effort! Has there been an unutterable evil in your 
young life ? Then crowd it out with good, or it will lie 
corrupting there forever, and cause your capacity for 
better things to partake its noisome corruption! ” 

“You stir up many thoughts,” said Donatello, pressing 


DONATELLO’S BUST 


4i 


his hand upon his brow, “but the multitude and the 
whirl of them make me dizzy.” 

They now left the sculptor’s temporary studio, without 
observing that his last accidental touches, with which he 
hurriedly effaced the look of deadly rage, had given the 
bust a higher and sweeter expression than it had hitherto 
worn. It is to be regretted that Kenyon had not seen 
it; for only an artist, perhaps, can conceive the irksome¬ 
ness, the irritation of brain, the depression of spirits, 
that resulted from his failure to satisfy himself, after so 
much toil and thought as he had bestowed on Dona¬ 
tello’s bust. In case of success, indeed, all this thought¬ 
ful toil would have been reckoned, not only as well 
bestowed, but as among the happiest hours of his life; 
whereas, deeming himself to have failed, it was just so 
much of life that had better never have been lived; for 
thus does the good or ill result of his labor throw back 
sunshine or gloom upon the artist’s mind. The sculp¬ 
tor, therefore, would have done well to glance again at 
his work; for here were still the features of the antique 
Faun, but now illuminated with a higher meaning, such 
as the old marble never bore. 

Donatello having quitted him, Kenyon spent the rest 
of the day strolling about the pleasant precincts of 
Monte Beni, where the summer was now so far advanced 
that it began, indeed, to partake of the ripe wealth of 
autumn. Apricots had long been abundant, and had 
passed away, and plums and cherries along with them. 
But now came great juicy pears, melting and delicious, 
and peaches of goodly size and tempting aspect, though 
cold and watery to the palate, compared with the sculp¬ 
tor’s rich reminiscences of that fruit in America. The 
purple* figs had already enjoyed their day, and the white 
ones were luscious now. The contadini (who, by this 
time, knew Kenyon well) found many clusters of ripe 
grapes for him, in every little globe of which was in¬ 
cluded a fragrant draught of the sunny Monte Beni 
wine. 

Unexpectedly, in a nook close by the farm-house, he 
happened upon a spot where the vintage had actually 


42 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


commenced. A great heap of early-ripened grapes had 
been gathered, and thrown into a mighty tub. In the 
middle of it stood a lusty and jolly contadino, nor stood, 
merely, but stamped with all his might, and danced 
amain; while the red juice bathed his feet, and threw 
its foam midway up his brown and shaggy legs. Here, 
then, was the very process that shows so picturesquely 
in Scripture and in poetry, of treading out the wine¬ 
press and dyeing the feet and garments with the crimson 
effusion as with the blood of a battle-field. The memory 
of the process does not make the Tuscan wine taste 
more deliciously. The contadini hospitably offered 
Kenyon a sample of the new liquor, that had already 
stood fermenting for a day or two. He had tried a 
similar draught, however, in years past, and was little 
inclined to make proof of it again ; for he knew that it 
would be a sour and bitter juice, a wine of woe and 
tribulation, and that, the more a man drinks of such 
liquor, the sorrier he is likely to be. 

The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England 
vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples 
lie under the orchard trees, in the mild, autumnal sun¬ 
shine ; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by a 
circumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious 
juice. To speak frankly, the cider-making is the more 
picturesque sight of the two, and the new, sweet cider 
an infinitely better drink than the ordinary, unripe Tus¬ 
can wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thou¬ 
sands upon thousands of small, flat barrels, and, still 
growing thinner and sharper, loses the little life it had, 
as wine, and becomes apotheosized as a more praise¬ 
worthy vinegar. 

Yet all these vineyard scenes, and the processes con¬ 
nected with the culture of the grape, had a flavor of 
poetry about them. The toil that produces those kindly 
gifts of nature which are not the substance of life, but 
its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to 
fancy that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen 
the overwrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted 
in sad, hard earnest to raise grain for sour bread. Cer- 


DONATELLO’S BUST 


43 


tainly, the sunburnt young men and dark-cheeked laugh¬ 
ing girls, who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni, 
might well enough have passed for inhabitants of an 
unsophisticated Arcadia. Later in the season, when the 
true vintage-time should come, and the wine of Sunshine 
gush into the vats, it was hardly too wild a dream that 
Bacchus himself might revisit the haunts which he loved 
of old. But, alas, where now would he find the Faun 
with whom we see him consorting in so many an antique 
group ? 

Donatello’s remorseful anguish saddened this primi¬ 
tive and delightful life. Kenyon had a pain of his own, 
moreover, although not all a pain, in the never quiet, 
never satisfied yearning of his heart towards Hilda. He 
was authorized to use little freedom towards that shy 
maiden, even in his visions ; so that he almost reproached 
himself when sometimes his imagination pictured in de¬ 
tail the sweet years that they might spend together in 
a retreat like this. It had just that rarest quality of re¬ 
moteness from the actual and ordinary world — a remote¬ 
ness through which all delights might visit them freely, 
sifted from all troubles — which lovers so reasonably 
insist upon, in their ideal arrangements for a happy 
union. It is possible, indeed, that even Donatello’s grief 
and Kenyon’s pale, sunless affection, lent a charm to 
Monte Beni, which it would not have retained amid a 
more redundant joyousness. The sculptor strayed amid 
its vineyards and orchards, its dells and tangled shrub¬ 
beries, with somewhat the sensations of an adventurer 
who should find his way to the sight of ancient Eden, and 
behold its loveliness through the transparency of that 
gloom which has been brooding over those haunts of 
innocence ever since the fall. Adam saw it in a brighter 
sunshine, but never knew the shade of pensive beauty 
which Eden won from his expulsion. 

It was in the decline of the afternoon that Kenyon 
returned from his long, musing ramble. Old Tomaso 
— between whom and himself for some time past there 
had been a mysterious understanding — met him in the 
entrance hall, and drew him a little aside. 


44 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ The signorina would speak with you,” he whispered. 
“In the chapel ? ” asked the sculptor. 

“No; in the saloon beyond it,” answered the butler; 
“the entrance — you once saw the signorina appear 
through it — is near the altar, hidden behind the tap¬ 
estry.” 

Kenyon lost no time in obeying the summons. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MARBLE SALOON 

I N an old Tuscan villa, a chapel ordinarily makes one 
among the numerous apartments; though it often 
happens that the door is permanently closed, the key 
lost, and the place left to itself, in dusty sanctity, like 
that chamber in man’s heart where he hides his religious 
awe. This was very much the case with the chapel of 
Monte Beni. One rainy day, however, in his wander¬ 
ings through the great, intricate house, Kenyon had un¬ 
expectedly found his way into it, and been impressed by 
its solemn aspect. The arched windows, high upward 
in the wall, and darkened with dust and cobweb, threw 
down a dim light that showed the altar, with a picture 
of a martyrdom above, and some tall tapers ranged be¬ 
fore it. They had apparently been lighted, and burned 
an hour or two, and been extinguished perhaps half a 
century before. The marble vase at the entrance held 
some hardened mud at the bottom, accruing from the 
dust that had settled in it during the gradual evapora¬ 
tion of the holy water; and a spider (being an insect 
that delights in pointing the moral of desolation and 
neglect) had taken pains to weave a prodigiously thick 
tissue across the circular brim. An old family banner, 
tattered by the moths, drooped from the vaulted roof. 
In niches, there were some mediaeval busts of Donatello’s 
forgotten ancestry; and among them, it might be, the 
forlorn visage of that hapless knight between whom and 
the fountain nymph had occurred such tender love pas¬ 
sages. 

Throughout all the jovial prosperity of Monte Beni, 
this one spot within the domestic walls had kept itself 
silent, stern, and sad. When the individual or the family 

45 


4 6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


retired from song and mirth, they here sought those 
realities which men do not invite their festive associates 
to share. And here, on the occasion above referred to, 
the sculptor had discovered — accidentally, so far as he 
was concerned, though with a purpose on her part — that 
there was a guest under Donatello’s roof, whose pres¬ 
ence the count did not suspect. An interview had since 
taken place, and he was now summoned to another. 

He crossed the chapel, in compliance with Tomaso’s 
instructions, and passing through the side entrance, found 
himself in a saloon, of no great size, but more magnifi¬ 
cent than he had supposed the villa to contain. As it 
was vacant, Kenyon had leisure to pace it once or twice, 
and examine it with a careless sort of scrutiny, before 
any person appeared. 

This beautiful hall was floored with rich marbles, in 
artistically arranged figures and compartments. The 
walls, likewise, were almost entirely cased in marble of 
various kinds, the prevalent variety being giallo antico, 
intermixed with verd-antique, and others equally pre¬ 
cious. The splendor of the giallo antico, however, was 
what gave character to the saloon; and the large and 
deep niches, apparently intended for full-length statues, 
along the walls, were lined with the same costly mate¬ 
rial. Without visiting Italy, one can have no idea of 
the beauty and magnificence that are produced by these 
fittings-up of polished marble. Without such experience, 
indeed, we do not even know what marble means, in any 
sense, save as the white limestone of which we carve our 
mantel-pieces. This rich hall of Monte Beni, moreover, 
was adorned, at its upper end, with two pillars that 
seemed to consist of oriental alabaster; and wherever 
there was a space vacant of precious and variegated 
marble, it was frescoed with ornaments in arabesque. 
Above, there was a coved and vaulted ceiling, glowing 
with pictured scenes, which affected Kenyon with a 
vague sense of splendor, without his twisting his neck 
to gaze at them. 

It is one of the special excellences of such a saloon 
of polished and richly-colored marble, that decay can 


THE MARBLE SALOON 


47 


never tarnish it. Until the house crumbles down upon 
it, it shines indestructibly, and with a little dusting looks 
just as brilliant in its three hundredth year as the day 
after the final slab of giallo antico was fitted into the 
wall. To the sculptor, at this first view of it, it seemed 
a hall where the sun was magically imprisoned, and 
must always shine. He anticipated Miriam’s entrance, 
arrayed in queenly robes, and beaming with even more 
than the singular beauty that had heretofore distin¬ 
guished her. 

While this thought was passing through his mind, the 
pillared door, at the upper end of the saloon, was partly 
opened, and Miriam appeared. She was very pale, and 
dressed in deep mourning. As she advanced towards 
the sculptor, the feebleness of her step was so apparent 
that he made haste to meet her, apprehending that she 
might sink down on the marble floor, without the instant 
support of his arm. 

But, with a gleam of her natural self-reliance, she 
declined his aid, and, after touching her cold hand to 
his, went and sat down on one of the cushioned divans 
that were ranged against the wall. 

“ You are very ill, Miriam! ” said Kenyon, much 
shocked at her appearance. “ I had not thought of 
this.” 

“No; not so ill as I seem to you,” she answered, 
adding despondently, “yet I am ill enough, I believe, 
to die, unless some change speedily occurs.” 

“ What, then, is your disorder ? ” asked the sculptor ; 
“ and what the remedy ? ” 

“ The disorder! ” repeated Miriam. “ There is none 
that I know of, save too much life and strength, without 
a purpose for one or the other. It is my too redundant 
energy that is slowly — or perhaps rapidly — wearing 
me away, because I can apply it to no use. The object, 
which I am bound to consider my only one on earth, 
fails me utterly. The sacrifice which I yearn to make 
of myself, my hopes, my everything, is coldly put aside. 
Nothing is left for me but to brood, brood, brood, all 
day, all night, in unprofitable longings and repinings.” 


4 8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ This is very sad, Miriam,” said Kenyon. 

“ Ay, indeed; I fancy so,” she replied, with a short, 
unnatural laugh. 

“ With all your activity of mind,” resumed he, “ so 
fertile in plans as I have known you — can you imagine 
no method of bringing your resources into play ? ” 

“ My mind is not active any longer,” answered Miriam, 
in a cold, indifferent tone. “ It deals with one thought 
and no more. One recollection paralyzes it. It is not 
remorse; do not think it! I put myself out of the ques¬ 
tion, and feel neither regret nor penitence on my own 
behalf. But what benumbs me — what robs me of all 
power — it is no secret for a woman to tell a man, yet 
I care not though you know it — is the certainty that I 
am, and must ever be, an object of horror in Donatello’s 
sight.” 

The sculptor — a young man, and cherishing a love 
which insulated him from the wild experiences which 
some men gather — was startled to perceive how Mir¬ 
iam’s rich, ill-regulated nature impelled her to fling 
herself, conscience and all, on one passion, the object 
of which intellectually seemed far beneath her. 

“ How have you obtained the certainty of which you 
speak?” asked he, after a pause. 

“Oh, by a sure token,” said Miriam; “a gesture, 
merely; a shudder, a cold shiver that ran through him 
one sunny morning when his hand happened to touch 
mine ! But it was enough.” 

“ I firmly believe, Miriam,” said the sculptor, “ that he 
loves you still.” 

She started, and a flush of color came tremulously 
over the paleness of her cheek. 

“ Yes,” repeated Kenyon, “ if my interest in Donatello 
— and in yourself, Miriam — endows me with any true 
insight, he not only loves you still, but with a force and 
depth proportioned to the stronger grasp of his faculties 
in their new development.” 

“ Do not deceive me,” said Miriam, growing pale again. 

“ Not for the world ! ” replied Kenyon. “ Here is 
what I take to be the truth. There was an interval, 


THE MARBLE SALOON 


49 


no doubt, when the horror of some calamity, which I 
need not shape out in my conjectures, threw Donatello 
into a stupor of mystery. Connected with the first 
shock there was an intolerable pain and shuddering re¬ 
pugnance attaching themselves to all the circumstances 
and surroundings of the event that so terribly affected 
him. Was his dearest friend involved within the horror 
of that moment? He would shrink from her as he 
shrank most of all from himself. But as his mind roused 
itself, — as it rose to a higher life than he had hitherto 
experienced,—whatever had been true and permanent 
within him revived by the selfsame impulse. So has it 
been with his love.” 

“ But, surely,” said Miriam, “ he knows that I am here ! 
Why, then, except that I am odious to him, does he not 
bid me welcome ? ” 

“ He is, I believe, aware of your presence here,” an¬ 
swered ,the sculptor. “ Your song, a night or two ago, 
must have revealed it to him, and, in truth, I had fancied 
that there was already a consciousness of it in his mind. 
But, the more passionately he longs for your society, the 
more religiously he deems himself bound to avoid it. 
The idea of a life-long penance has taken strong pos¬ 
session of Donatello. He gropes blindly about him for 
some method of sharp self-torture, and finds, of course, 
no other so efficacious as this.” 

“ But, he loves me,” repeated Miriam, in a low voice, 
to herself. “Yes; he loves me!” 

It was strange to observe the womanly softness that 
came over her, as she admitted that comfort into her 
bosom. The cold, unnatural indifference of her manner, 
a kind of frozen passionateness, which had shocked and 
chilled the sculptor, disappeared. She blushed, and 
turned away her eyes, knowing that there was more 
surprise and joy in their dewy glances, than any man 
save one ought to detect there.. 

“In other respects,” she inquired at length, “is he 
much changed ? ” 

“ A wonderful process is going forward in Donatello s 
mind,” answered the sculptor. “ The germs of faculties 


5° 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


that have heretofore slept are fast springing into activity. 
The world of thought is disclosing itself to his inward 
sight. He startles me, at times, with his perception of 
deep truths; and, quite as often, it must be owned he 
compels me to smile by the intermixture of his former 
simplicity with a new intelligence. But, he is bewildered 
with the revelations that each day brings. Out of his 
bitter agony, a soul and intellect, I could almost say, 
have been inspired into him.” 

“Ah, I could help him here! ” cried Miriam, clasping 
her hands. “ And how sweet a toil to bend and adapt 
my whole nature to do him good! To instruct, to ele¬ 
vate, to enrich his mind with the wealth that would flow 
in upon me, had I such a motive for acquiring it! who 
else can perform the task ? Who else has the tender 
sympathy which he requires ? Who else, save only me, 
— a woman, a sharer in the same dread secret, a partaker 
in one identical guilt, — could meet him on such terms 
of intimate equality as the case demands ? With this 
object before me, I might feel a right to live! Without 
it, it is a shame for me to have lived so long.” 

“ I fully agree with you,” said Kenyon, “ that your true 
place is by his side.” 

“ Surely it is,” replied Miriam. “ If Donatello is en¬ 
titled to aught on earth, it is to my complete self-sacri¬ 
fice for his sake. It does not weaken his claim, methinks, 
that my only prospect of happiness — a fearful word, 
however—lies in the good that may accrue to him from 
our intercourse. But he rejects me ! He will not listen 
to the whisper of his heart, telling him that she, most 
wretched, who beguiled him into evil, might guide him 
to a higher innocence than that from which he fell. 
How is this first great difficulty to be obviated ? ” 

“ It lies at your own option, Miriam, to do away the 
obstacle, at any moment,” remarked the sculptor. “ It 
is but to ascend Donatello’s tower, and you will meet 
him there, under the eye of God.” 

“ I dare not,” answered Miriam. “ No ; I dare not! ” 
“ Do you fear,” asked the sculptor, “ the dread eye¬ 
witness whom I have named?” 


THE MARBLE SALOON 


5 1 


“ No; for, as far as I can see into that cloudy and in¬ 
scrutable thing, my heart, it has none but pure motives,” 
replied Miriam. “ But, my friend, you little know what 
a weak or what a strong creature a woman is! I fear 
not Heaven, in this case, at least, but —shall I confess 
it ? — I am greatly in dread of Donatello. Once, he shud¬ 
dered at my touch. If he shudder once again, or frown, 
I die ! ” 

Kenyon could not but marvel at the subjection into 
which this proud and self-dependent woman had wilfully 
flung herself, hanging her life upon the chance of an an¬ 
gry or favorable regard from a person who, a little while 
before, had seemed the plaything of a moment. But, in 
Miriam’s eyes, Donatello was always thenceforth in¬ 
vested with the tragic dignity of their hour of crime; 
and furthermore, the keen and deep insight, with which 
her love endowed her, enabled her to know him far bet¬ 
ter than he could be known by ordinary observation. 
Beyond all question, since she loved him so, there was 
a force in Donatello worthy of her respect and love. 

“ You see my weakness,” said Miriam, flinging out her 
hands, as a person does when a defect is acknowledged, 
and beyond remedy. “ What I need, now, is an oppor¬ 
tunity to show my strength.” 

“It has occurred to me,” Kenyon remarked, “that the 
time is come, when it may be desirable to remove Dona¬ 
tello from the complete seclusion in which he buries him¬ 
self. He has struggled long enough with one idea. He 
now needs a variety of thought, which cannot be other¬ 
wise so readily supplied to him, as through the medium 
of a variety of scenes. His mind is awakened, now; his 
heart, though full of pain, is no longer benumbed. They 
should have food and solace. If he linger here much 
longer, I fear that he may sink back into a lethargy. 
The extreme excitability, which circumstances have im¬ 
parted to his moral system, has its dangers and its advan¬ 
tages ; it being one of the dangers, that an obdurate scar 
may supervene upon its very tenderness. Solitude has 
done what it could for him; now, for a while, let him be 
enticed into the outer world.” 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


5 2 


“ What is your plan, then ? ” asked Miriam. 

“ Simply,” replied Kenyon, “ to persuade Donatello to 
be my companion in a ramble among these hills and val¬ 
leys. The little adventures and vicissitudes of travel will 
do him infinite good. After his recent profound experi¬ 
ence, he will re-create the world by the new eyes with 
which he will regard it. He will escape, I hope, out of 
a morbid life, and find his way into a healthy one.” 

“And what is to be my part in this process?” inquired 
Miriam sadly, and not without jealousy. “You are tak¬ 
ing him from me, and putting yourself, and all manner 
of living interests, into the place which I ought to fill! ” 
“ It would rejoice me, Miriam, to yield the entire re¬ 
sponsibility of this office to yourself,” answered the 
sculptor. “ I do not pretend to be the guide and coun¬ 
sellor whom Donatello needs; for, to mention no other 
obstacle, I am a man, and between man and man there 
is always an insuperable gulf. They can never quite 
grasp each other’s hands; and therefore man never de¬ 
rives any intimate help, any heart, sustenance, from his 
brother man, but from woman, — his mother, his sister, 
or his wife. Be Donatello’s friend at need, therefore, 
and most gladly will I resign him ! ” 

“ It is not kind to taunt me thus,” said Miriam. “ I 
have told you that I cannot do what you suggest, because 
I dare not.” 

“ Well, then,” rejoined the sculptor, “ see if there is 
any possibility of adapting yourself to my scheme. The 
incidents of a journey often fling people together in the 
oddest, and therefore the most natural way. Supposing 
you were to find yourself on the same route, a reunion 
with Donatello might ensue, and Providence have a larger 
hand in it than either of us.” 

“ It is not a hopeful plan,” said Miriam, shaking her 
head, after a moment’s thought; “yet I will not reject 
it without a trial. Only, in case it fail, here is a resolu¬ 
tion to which I bind myself, come what come may! You 
know the bronze statue of Pope Julius in the great square 
of Perugia ? I remember standing in the shadow of that 
statue one sunny noontime and being impressed by its 


THE MARBLE SALOON 


53 


paternal aspect, and fancying that a blessing fell upon 
me from its outstretched hand. Ever since, I have had 
a superstition, — you will call it foolish, but sad and ill- 
fated persons always dream such things, — that, if I 
waited long enough in that same spot, some good event 
would come to pass. Well, my friend, precisely a fort¬ 
night after you begin your tour, — unless we sooner 
meet, — bring Donatello, at noon, to the base of the 
statue. You will find me there! ” 

Kenyon assented to the proposed arrangement, and, 
after some conversation respecting his contemplated line 
of travel, prepared to take his leave. As he met Mir¬ 
iam’s eyes, in bidding farewell, he was surprised at the 
new, tender gladness that beamed out of them, and at the 
appearance of health and bloom, which, in this little 
while, had overspread her face. 

“ May I tell you, Miriam,” said he, smiling, “ that you 
are still as beautiful as ever ? ” 

“You have a right to notice it,” she replied, “for, if 
it be so, my faded bloom has been revived by the hopes 
you give me. Do you, then, think me beautiful? I 
rejoice, most truly. Beauty — if I possess it — shall be 
one of the instruments by which I will try to educate 
and elevate him, to whose good I solely dedicate myself.” 

The sculptor had nearly reached the door, when, hear¬ 
ing her call him, he turned back, and beheld Miriam still 
standing where he had left her, in the magnificent hall 
which seemed only a fit setting for her beauty. She 
beckoned him to return. 

“You are a man of refined taste,” said she; “more 
than that, — a man of delicate sensibility. Now tell me 
frankly, and on your honor! Have I not shocked you 
many times during this interview by my betrayal of 
woman’s cause, my lack of feminine modesty, my reck¬ 
less, passionate, most indecorous avowal, that I live only 
in the life of one who perhaps scorns and shudders 
at me ? ” 

Thus adjured, however difficult the point to which she 
brought him, the sculptor was not a man to swerve aside 
from the simple truth. 


54 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Miriam,” replied he, “ you exaggerate the impression 
made upon my mind; but it has been painful, and some¬ 
what of the character which you suppose.” 

“ I knew it,” said Miriam, mournfully, and with no 
resentment. “ What remains of my finer nature would 
have told me so, even if it had not been perceptible in 
all your manner. Well, my dear friend, when you go 
back to Rome, tell Hilda what her severity has done! 
She was all womanhood to me; and when she cast me 
off, I had no longer any terms to keep with the reserves 
and decorums of my sex. Hilda has set me free! Pray 
tell her so, from Miriam, and thank her! ” 

“ I shall tell Hilda nothing that will give her pain,” 
answered Kenyon. “But, Miriam, — though I know 
not what passed between her and yourself, — I feel — 
and let the noble frankness of your disposition forgive 
me, if I say so— I feel that she was right. You have a 
thousand admirable qualities. Whatever mass of evil 
may have fallen into your life, — pardon me, but your 
own words suggest it,—you are still as capable as ever 
of many high and heroic virtues. But the white shin¬ 
ing purity of Hilda’s nature is a thing apart; and she is 
bound by the undefiled material of which God moulded 
her, to keep that severity which I, as well as you, have 
recognized.” 

“ Oh, you are right! ” said Miriam; “ I never ques¬ 
tioned it; though, as I told you, when she cast me off, 
it severed some few remaining bonds between me and 
decorous womanhood. But were there anything to for¬ 
give, I do forgive her. May you win her virgin heart; 
for methinks there can be few men in this evil world 
who are not more unworthy of her than yourself.” 


CHAPTER VII 


SCENES BY THE WAY 

W HEN it came to the point of quitting the reposeful 
life of Monte Beni, the sculptor was not without 
regrets, and would willingly have dreamed a little longer 
of the sweet paradise on earth that Hilda’s presence 
there might make. Nevertheless, amid all its repose, 
he had begun to be sensible of a restless melancholy, to 
which the cultivators of the ideal arts are more liable 
than sturdier men. On his own part, therefore, and 
leaving Donatello out of the case, he would have judged 
it well to go. He made parting visits to the legendary 
dell, and to other delightful spots with which he had 
grown familiar; he climbed the tower again, and saw a 
sunset and a moonrise over the great valley; he drank, 
on the eve of his departure, one flask, and then another, 
of the Monte Beni Sunshine, and stored up its flavor in 
his memory, as the standard of what is exquisite in wine. 
These things accomplished, Kenyon was ready for the 
journey. 

Donatello had not very easily been stirred out of the 
peculiar sluggishness, which inthralls and bewitches mel¬ 
ancholy people. He had offered merely a passive resist¬ 
ance, however, not an active one, to his friend’s schemes; 
and when the appointed hour came, he yielded to the 
impulse which Kenyon failed not to apply; and was 
started upon the journey before he had made up his 
mind to undertake it. They wandered forth at large, 
like two knights-errant among the valleys, and the moun¬ 
tains, and the old mountain-towrfs of that picturesque 
and lovely region. Save to keep the appointment with 
Miriam, a fortnight thereafter, in the great square of 
Perugia, there was nothing more definite in the sculptor’s 

55 


56 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


plan, than that they should let themselves be blown 
hither and thither like winged seeds, that mount upon 
each wandering breeze. Yet there was an idea of fatal¬ 
ity implied in the simile of the winged seeds which did 
not altogether suit Kenyon’s fancy; for, if you look 
closely into the matter it will be seen that whatever 
appears most vagrant, and utterly purposeless, turns out, 
in the end, to have been impelled the most surely on a 
preordained and unswerving track. Chance and change 
love to deal with men’s settled plans, not with their idle 
vagaries. If we desire unexpected and unimaginable 
events, we should contrive an iron framework, such as 
we fancy may compel the future to take one inevitable 
shape; then comes in the unexpected, and shatters our 
design in fragments. 

The travellers set forth on horseback, and purposed to 
perform much of their aimless journeyings, under the 
moon, and in the cool of the morning or evening twi¬ 
light ; the mid-day sun, while summer had hardly begun 
to trail its departing skirts over Tuscany, being still too 
fervid to allow of noontide exposure. 

For a while, they wandered in that same broad valley 
which Kenyon had viewed with such delight from the 
Monte Beni tower. The sculptor soon began to enjoy 
the idle activity of their new life, which the lapse of a 
day or two sufficed to establish as a kind of system ; it 
is so natural for mankind to be nomadic, that a very 
little taste of that primitive mode of existence subverts 
the settled habits of many preceding years. Kenyon’s 
cares, and whatever gloomy ideas before possessed him, 
seemed to be left at Monte Beni, and were scarcely 
remembered by the time that its gray tower grew undis- 
tinguishable on the brown hill-side. His perceptive 
faculties, which had found little exercise of late, amid 
so thoughtful a way of life, became keen, and kept his 
eyes busy with a hundred agreeable scenes. 

He delighted in the picturesque bits of rustic character 
and manners, so little of which ever comes upon the sur¬ 
face of our life at home. There, for example, were the 
old women, tending pigs or sheep by the wayside. As 


SCENES BY THE WAY 


57 


they followed the vagrant steps of their charge, these 
venerable ladies kept spinning yarn with that elsewhere 
forgotten contrivance, the distaff; and so wrinkled and 
stain-looking were they, that you might have taken them 
for the Parcae, spinning the threads of human destiny. 
In contrast with their great grandmothers were the chil¬ 
dren, leading goats of shaggy beard, tied by the horns, 
and letting them browse on branch and shrub. It is the 
fashion of Italy to add the petty industry of age and 
childhood to the hum of human toil. To the eyes of an 
observer from the western world, it was a strange spec¬ 
tacle to see sturdy, sunburnt creatures, in petticoats, but 
otherwise manlike, toiling side by side with male laborers, 
in the rudest work of the fields. These sturdy women 
(if as such we must recognize them) wore the high- 
crowned, broad-brimmed hat of Tuscan straw, the cus¬ 
tomary female head-apparel; and, as every breeze blew 
back its breadth of brim, the sunshine constantly added 
depth to the brown glow of their cheeks. The elder 
sisterhood, however, set off their witch-like ugliness to 
the worst advantage with black felt hats, bequeathed 
them, one would fancy, by their long-buried husbands. 

Another ordinary sight, as sylvan as the above, and 
more agreeable, was a girl, bearing on her back a huge 
bundle of green twigs and shrubs, or grass, intermixed 
with scarlet poppies and blue flowers; the verdant bur¬ 
den being sometimes of such size as to hide the bearer’s 
figure, and seem a self-moving mass of fragrant bloom 
and verdure. Oftener, however, the bundle reached only 
half way down the back of the rustic nymph, leaving in 
sight her well-developed lower limbs, and the crooked 
knife, hanging behind her, with which she had been reap¬ 
ing this strange harvest sheaf. A pre-Raphaelite artist 
(he, for instance, who painted so marvellously a wind¬ 
swept heap of autumnal leaves) might find an admirable 
subject in one of these Tuscan girls stepping with a free, 
erect, and graceful carriage. The miscellaneous herbage 
and tangled twigs and blossoms of her bundle, crowning 
her head (while her ruddy, comely face looks out between 
the hanging side festoons like a larger flower), would 


5« 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


give the painter boundless scope for the minute delinea¬ 
tion which he loves. 

Though mixed up with what was rude and earthlike, 
there was still a remote, dreamlike, Arcadian charm, 
which is scarcely to be found in the daily toil of other 
lands. Among the pleasant features of the wayside were 
always the vines, clambering on fig-trees, or other sturdy 
trunks; they wreathed themselves, in huge and rich 
festoons, from one tree to another, suspending clusters 
of ripening grapes in the interval between. Under such 
careless mode of culture, the luxuriant vine is a lovelier 
spectacle than where it produces a more precious liquor, 
and is therefore more artificially restrained and trimmed. 
Nothing can be more picturesque than an old grape-vine, 
with almost a trunk of its own, clinging fast around its 
supporting tree. Nor does the picture lack its moral. 
You might twist it to more than one grave purpose, as 
you saw how the knotted, serpentine growth imprisoned 
within its strong embrace the friend that had supported 
its tender infancy; and how (as seemingly flexible 
natures are prone to do) it converted the sturdier tree 
entirely to its own selfish ends, extending its innumer¬ 
able arms on every bough, and permitting hardly a leaf 
to sprout except its own. It occurred to Kenyon, that 
the enemies of the vine, in his native land, might here 
have seen an emblem of the remorseless gripe, which 
the habit of vinous enjoyment lays upon its victim, pos¬ 
sessing him wholly, and letting him live no life but such 
as it bestows. 

The scene was not less characteristic when their path 
led the two wanderers through some small, ancient town. 
There, besides the peculiarities of present life, they saw 
tokens of the life that had long ago been lived and flung 
aside. The little town, such as we see in our mind’s eye, 
would have its gate and its surrounding walls so ancient 
and massive that ages had not sufficed to crumble them 
away ; but in the lofty upper portion of the gateway, still 
standing over the empty arch, where there was no longer 
a gate to shut, there would be a dove-cote, and peaceful 
doves for the only warders. Pumpkins lay ripening in 


SCENES BY THE WAY 


59 


the open chambers of the structure. Then, as for the 
town-wall, on the outside an orchard extends peacefully 
along its base, full, not of apple-trees, but of those old 
humorists with gnarled trunks and twisted boughs, the 
olives. Houses have been built upon the ramparts, or 
burrowed out of their ponderous foundation. Even the 
gray, martial towers crowned with ruined turrets, have 
been converted into rustic habitations, from the windows 
of which hang ears of Indian corn. At a door, that has 
been broken through the massive stonework, where it 
was meant to be strongest, some contadini are winnow¬ 
ing grain. Small windows, too, are pierced through the 
whole line of ancient wall, so that it seems a row of 
dwellings with one continuous front, built in a strange 
style of needless strength; but remnants of the old bat¬ 
tlements and machicolations are interspersed with the 
homely chambers and earthen-tiled house-tops; and all 
along its extent both grape-vines and running flower- 
shrubs are encouraged to clamber and sport over the 
roughnesses of its decay. 

Finally the long grass, intermixed with weeds and wild 
flowers, waves on the uppermost height of the shattered 
rampart; and it is exceedingly pleasant in the golden 
sunshine of the afternoon to behold the warlike precinct 
so friendly in its old days, and so overgrown with rural 
peace. In its guard-rooms, its prison-chambers, and 
scooped out of its ponderous breadth, there are dwellings 
nowadays where happy human lives are spent. Human 
parents and broods of children nestle in them, even as 
the swallows nestle in the little crevices along the broken 
summit of the wall. 

Passing through the gateway of this same little town, 
challenged only by those watchful sentinels, the pigeons, 
we find ourselves in a long, narrow street, paved from 
side to side with flagstones, in the old Roman fashion. 
Nothing can exceed the grim ugliness of the houses, 
most of which are three or four stories high, stone built, 
gray, dilapidated, or half-covered with plaster in patches, 
and contiguous all along from end to end of the town. 
Nature, in the shape of tree, shrub, or grassy side-walk, 


6o 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


is as much shut out from the one street of the rustic 
village as from the heart of any swarming city. The 
dark and half-ruinous habitations, with their small win¬ 
dows, many of which are drearily closed with wooden 
shutters, are but magnified hovels, piled story upon 
story, and squalid with the grime that successive ages 
have left behind them. It would be a hideous scene to 
contemplate in a rainy day, or when no human life per¬ 
vaded it. In the summer-noon, however, it possesses 
vivacity enough to keep itself cheerful; for all the 
within-doors of the village then bubbles over upon the 
flagstones, or looks out from the small windows, and 
from here and there a balcony. Some of the populace 
are at the butcher’s shop; others are at the fountain, 
which gushes into a marble basin that resembles an 
antique sarcophagus. A tailor is sewing before his 
door, with a young priest seated sociably beside him; a 
burly friar goes by with an empty wine-barrel on his 
head; children are at play; women at their own door¬ 
steps mend clothes, embroider, weave hats of Tuscan 
straw, or twirl the distaff. Many idlers, meanwhile, 
strolling from one group to another, let the warm day 
slide by in the sweet, interminable task of doing noth¬ 
ing. 

From all these people there comes a babblement that 
seems quite disproportioned to the number of tongues 
that make it. So many words are not uttered in a New 
England village throughout the year — except it be at 
a political canvass or town-meeting — as are spoken 
here, with no especial purpose, in a single day. Neither 
so many words, nor so much laughter; for people talk 
about nothing as if they were terribly in earnest, and 
make merry at nothing, as if it were the best of all pos¬ 
sible jokes. In so long a time as they have existed, and 
within such narrow precincts, these little walled towns 
are brought into a closeness of society that makes them 
but a larger household. All the inhabitants are akin to 
each, and each to all; they assemble in the street as 
their common saloon, and thus live and die in a famili¬ 
arity of intercourse such as never can be known where 


SCENES BY THE WAY 


6 1 

a village is open at either end, and all roundabout, and 
has ample room within itself. 

Stuck up beside the door of one house, in this village 
street, is a withered bough; and on a stone seat, just 
under the shadow of the bough, sits a party of jolly 
drinkers, making proof of the new wine, or quaffing 
the old, as their often-tried and comfortable friend. 
Kenyon draws bridle here (for the bough, or bush, is a 
symbol of the wine-shop at this day in Italy, as it was 
three hundred years ago in England), and calls for a 
goblet of the deep, mild, purple juice, well diluted with 
water from the fountain. The Sunshine of Monte Beni 
would be welcome now. Meanwhile, Donatello has 
ridden onward, but alights where a shrine, with a burn¬ 
ing lamp before it, is built into the wall of an inn-stable. 
He kneels, and crosses himself, and mutters a brief 
prayer, without attracting notice from the passers-by, 
many of whom are parenthetically devout, in a similar 
fashion. By this time the sculptor has drunk off his 
wine-and-water, and our two travellers resume their way, 
emerging from the opposite gate of the village. 

Before them, again, lies the broad valley, with a mist 
so thinly scattered over it as to be perceptible only in 
the distance, and most so in the nooks of the hills. Now 
that we have called it mist, it seems a mistake not rather 
to have called it sunshine; the glory of so much light 
being mingled with so little gloom, in the airy material 
of that vapor. Be it mist or sunshine, it adds a touch 
of ideal beauty to the scene, almost persuading the 
spectator that this valley and those hills are visionary, 
because their visible atmosphere is so like the substance 
of a dream. 

Immediately about them, however, there were abun¬ 
dant tokens that the country was not really the paradise 
it looked to be, at a casual glance. Neither the wretched 
cottages nor the dreary farm-houses seemed to partake 
of the prosperity, with which so kindly a climate, and 
so fertile a portion of Mother Earth’s bosom, should 
have filled them, one and all. But, possibly, the peas¬ 
ant inhabitants do not exist in so grimy a poverty, and 


6 2 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


in homes so comfortless, as a stranger, with his native 
ideas of those matters, would be likely to imagine. The 
Italians appear to possess none of that emulative pride 
which we see in our New England villages, where every 
householder, according to his taste and means, en¬ 
deavors to make his homestead an ornament to the 
grassy and elm-shadowed wayside. In Italy there are 
no neat doorsteps and thresholds ; no pleasant, vine- 
sheltered porches ; none of those grass-plots or smoothly- 
shorn lawns, which hospitably invite the imagination 
into the sweet domestic interiors of English life. Every¬ 
thing, however sunny and luxuriant may be the scene 
around, is especially disheartening in the immediate 
neighborhood of an Italian home. 

An artist, it is true, might often thank his stars for 
those old houses, so picturesquely time-stained, and with 
the plaster falling in blotches from the ancient brick¬ 
work. The prison-like, iron-barred windows, and the 
wide-arched, dismal entrance, admitting on one hand to 
the stable, on the other to the kitchen, might impress 
him as far better worth his pencil than the newly- 
painted pine boxes, in which — if he be an American — 
his countrymen live and thrive. But there is reason to 
suspect that a people are waning to decay and ruin the 
moment that their life becomes fascinating either in the 
poet’s imagination or the painter’s eye. 

As usual, on Italian waysides, the wanderers passed 
great, black crosses, hung with all the instruments of 
the sacred agony and passion; there were the crown of 
thorns, the hammer and nails, the pinchers, the spear, 
the sponge; and perched over the whole, the cock that 
crowed to Saint Peter’s remorseful conscience. Thus, 
while the fertile scene showed the never-failing benefi¬ 
cence of the Creator towards man in his transitory state, 
these symbols reminded each wayfarer of the Saviour’s 
infinitely greater love for him as an immortal spirit. 
Beholding these consecrated stations, the idea seemed 
to strike Donatello of converting the otherwise aimless 
journey into a penitential pilgrimage. At each of them 
he alighted to kneel and kiss the cross, and humbly 


SCENES BY THE WAY 


63 


press his forehead against its foot; and this so invari¬ 
ably, that the sculptor soon learned to draw bridle of his 
own accord. It may be, too, heretic as he was, that 
Kenyon likewise put up a prayer, rendered more fer¬ 
vent by the symbols before his eyes, for the peace of 
his friend’s conscience, and the pardon of the sin that 
so oppressed him. 

Not only at the crosses did Donatello kneel, but at 
each of the many shrines, where the blessed Virgin in 
fresco — faded with sunshine and half washed out with 
showers — looked benignly at her worshipper; or where 
she was represented in a wooden image, or a bas-relief 
of plaster or marble, as accorded with the means of the 
devout person who built, or restored from a mediaeval 
antiquity, these places of wayside worship. They were 
everywhere ; under arched niches, or in little penthouses 
with a brick-tiled roof, just large enough to shelter them ; 
or perhaps in some bit of old Roman masonry, the found¬ 
ers of which had died before the Advent; or in the wall 
of a country inn or farm-house, or at the midway point 
of a bridge, or in the shallow cavity of a natural rock, or 
high upward in the deep cuts of the road. It appeared 
to the sculptor that Donatello prayed the more earnestly 
and the more hopefully at these shrines, because the 
mild face of the Madonna promised him to intercede as 
a tender mother betwixt the poor culprit and the awful¬ 
ness of judgment. 

It was beautiful to observe, indeed, how tender was 
the soul of man and woman towards the Virgin mother, 
in recognition of the tenderness which, as their faith 
taught them, she immortally cherishes towards all human 
souls. In the wire-work screen, before each shrine, 
hung offerings of roses, or whatever flower was sweetest 
and most seasonable ; some already wilted and withered, 
some fresh with that very morning’s dew-drops. Flowers 
there were, too, that, being artificial, never bloomed on 
earth, nor would ever fade. The thought occurred to 
Kenyon, that flower-pots with living plants might be set 
within the niches, or even that rose-trees, and all kinds 
of flowering shrubs, might be reared under the shrines 


64 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


and taught to twine and wreathe themselves around ; so 
that the Virgin should dwell within a bower of verdure, 
bloom, and fragrant freshness, symbolizing a homage 
perpetually new. There are many things in the reli¬ 
gious customs of these people that seem good; many 
things, at least, that might be both good and beautiful, 
if the soul of goodness and the sense of beauty were 
as much alive in the Italians now as they must have 
been when those customs were first imagined and 
adopted. But, instead of blossoms on the shrub, or 
freshly gathered, with the dew-drops on their leaves, 
their worship, nowadays, is best symbolized by the 
artificial flower. 

The sculptor fancied, moreover, (but perhaps it was 
his heresy that suggested the idea,) that it would be of 
happy influence to place a comfortable and shady seat 
beneath every wayside shrine. Then, the weary and 
sun-scorched traveller, while resting himself under her 
protecting shadow, might thank the Virgin for her hos¬ 
pitality. Nor perchance, were he to regale himself, even 
in such a consecrated spot, with the fragrance of a pipe, 
would it rise to heaven more offensively than the smoke 
of priestly incense. We do ourselves wrong, and too 
meanly estimate the Holiness above us, when we deem 
that any act or enjoyment, good in itself, is not good to 
do religiously. 

Whatever may be the iniquities of the papal system, 
it was a wise and lovely sentiment, that set up the fre¬ 
quent shrine and cross along the roadside. No way¬ 
farer, bent on whatever worldly errand, can fail to be 
reminded, at every mile or two, that this is not the busi¬ 
ness which most concerns him. The pleasure-seeker is 
silently admonished to look heavenward for a joy infi¬ 
nitely greater than he now possesses. The wretch in 
temptation beholds the cross, and is warned, that if he 
yield, the Saviour’s agony for his sake will have been 
endured in vain. The stubborn criminal, whose heart 
has long been like a stone, feels it throb anew with 
dread and hope, and our poor Donatello, as he went 
kneeling from shrine to cross, and from cross to shrine, 


SCENES BY THE WAY 65 

doubtless found an efficacy in these symbols that helped 
him towards a higher penitence. 

Whether the young Count of Monte Beni noticed the 
fact, or no, there was more than one incident of their 
journey that led Kenyon to believe, that they were 
attended, or closely followed, or preceded, near at hand, 
by some one who took an interest in their motions. As 
it were, the step, the sweeping garment, the faintly heard 
breath, of an invisible companion, was beside them, as 
they went on their way. It was like a dream that had 
strayed out of their slumber and was haunting them in 
the daytime, when its shadowy substance could have 
neither density nor outline, in the too obtrusive light. 
After sunset, it grew a little more distinct. 

“ On the left of that last shrine,” asked the sculptor, 
as they rode, under the moon, “did you observe the 
figure of a woman kneeling, with her face hidden in her 
hands ?” 

“ I never looked that way,” replied Donatello. “ I 
was saying my own prayer. It was some penitent, per¬ 
chance. May the Blessed Virgin be the more gracious 
to the poor soul, because she is a woman.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


PICTURED WINDOWS 


FTER wide wanderings through the valley, the two 



travellers directed their course towards its boun¬ 
dary of hills. Here, the natural scenery and men’s 
modifications of it immediately took a different aspect 
from that of the fertile and smiling plain. Not unfre- 
quently there was a convent on the hill-side; or, on 
some insulated promontory, a ruined castle, once the 
den of a robber chieftain, who was accustomed to dash 
down from his commanding height upon the road that 
wound below. For ages back, the old fortress had been 
flinging down its crumbling ramparts, stone by stone, 
towards the grimy village at its foot. 

Their road wound onward among the hills, which rose 
steep and lofty from the scanty level space that lay be¬ 
tween them. They continually thrust their great bulks 
before the wayfarers, as if grimly resolute to forbid their 
passage, or closed abruptly behind them, when they still 
dared to proceed. A gigantic hill would set its foot 
right down before them, and only at the last moment, 
would grudgingly withdraw it, just far enough to let 
them creep towards another obstacle. Adown these 
rough heights were visible the dry tracks of many a 
mountain-torrent that had lived a life too fierce and pas¬ 
sionate to be a long one. Or, perhaps a stream was yet 
hurrying shyly along the edge of a far wider bed of peb¬ 
bles and shelving rock than it seemed to need, though 
not too wide for the swollen rage of which this shy riv¬ 
ulet was capable. A stone bridge bestrode it, the pon¬ 
derous arches of which were upheld and rendered 
indestructible by the weight of the very stones that 
threatened to crush them down. Old Roman toil was 


66 


PICTURED WINDOWS 


67 

perceptible in the foundations of that massive bridge; 
the first weight that it ever bore was that of an army of 
the Republic. 

Threading these defiles, they would arrive at some 
immemorial city, crowning the high summit of a hill 
with its cathedral, its many churches, and public edi¬ 
fices, all of Gothic architecture. With no more level 
ground than a single piazza, in the midst, the ancient 
town tumbled its crooked and narrow streets down the 
mountain-side, through arched passages and by steps of 
stone. The aspect of everything was awfully old; 
older, indeed, in its effect on the imagination, than Rome 
itself, because history does not lay its finger on these 
forgotten edifices and tell us all about their origin. 
Etruscan princes may have dwelt in them. A thousand 
years, at all events, would seem but a middle age for 
these structures. They are built of such huge, square 
stones, that their appearance of ponderous durability dis¬ 
tresses the beholder with the idea that they can never 
fall — never crumble away — never be less fit than now 
for human habitation. Many of them may once have 
been palaces, and still retain a squalid grandeur. But, 
gazing at them, we recognize how undesirable it is to 
build the tabernacle of our brief lifetime out of perma¬ 
nent materials, and with a view to their being occupied 
by future generations. 

All towns should be made capable of purification by 
fire, or of decay within each half-century. Otherwise, 
they become the hereditary haunts of vermin and noi¬ 
someness, besides standing apart from the possibility of 
such improvements as are constantly introduced into the 
rest of man's contrivances and accommodations. It is 
beautiful, no doubt, and exceedingly satisfactory to some 
of our natural instincts, to imagine our far posterity 
dwelling under the same roof-tree as ourselves. Still, 
when people insist on building indestructible houses, 
they incur, or their children do, a misfortune analogous 
to that of the Sibyl, when she obtained the grievous 
boon of immortality. So, we may build almost immor¬ 
tal habitations, it is true ; but we cannot keep them from 


68 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


growing old, musty, unwholesome, dreary, full of death- 
scents, ghosts, and murder-stains ; in short, such habita¬ 
tions as one sees everywhere in Italy, be they hovels or 
palaces. 

“You should go with me to my native country,” ob¬ 
served the sculptor, to Donatello. “In that fortunate 
land, each generation has only its own sins and sorrows 
to bear. Here, it seems as if all the weary and dreary 
Past were piled upon the back of the Present. If I 
were to lose my spirits in this country — if I were to 
suffer any heavy misfortune here — methinks it would 
be impossible to stand up against it, under such adverse 
influences.” 

“ The sky itself is an old roof, now,” answered the 
count; “ and, no doubt, the sins of mankind have made 
it gloomier than it used to be.” 

“ Oh, my poor Faun,” thought Kenyon to himself, 
“ how art thou changed ! ” 

A city, like this of which we speak, seems a sort of 
stony growth out of the hill-side, or a fossilized town; 
so ancient and strange it looks, without enough of life 
and juiciness in it to be any longer susceptible of decay. 
An earthquake would afford it the only chance of being 
ruined, beyond its present ruin. 

Yet, though dead to all the purposes for which we 
live to-day, the place has its glorious recollections, and 
not merely rude and warlike ones, but those of brighter 
and milder triumphs, the fruits of which we still enjoy. 
Italy can count several of these lifeless towns which, 
four or five hundred years ago, were each the birthplace 
of its own school of art; nor have they yet forgotten to 
be proud of the dark, old pictures, and the faded fres¬ 
coes, the pristine beauty of which was a light and glad¬ 
ness to the world. But now, unless one happens‘to be 
a painter, these famous works make us miserably des¬ 
perate. They are poor, dim ghosts of what, when 
Giotto or Cimabue first created them, threw a splendor 
along the stately aisles; so far gone towards nothing¬ 
ness, in our day, that scarcely a hint of design or expres¬ 
sion can glimmer through the dusk. Those early artists 


PICTURED WINDOWS 


69 

did well to paint their frescoes. Glowing on the church 
walls, they might be looked upon as symbols of the liv¬ 
ing spirit that made Catholicism a true religion, and that 
glorified it as long as it retained a genuine life; they 
filled the transepts with a radiant throng of saints and 
angels, and threw around the high altar a faint reflection 
— as much as mortals could see, or bear — of a Diviner 
Presence. But now that the colors are so wretchedly 
bedimmed — now that blotches of plastered wall dot the 
frescoes all over, like a mean reality thrusting itself 
through life’s brightest illusions, —the next best artist to 
Cimabue or Giotto or Ghirlandaio or Pinturicchio, will 
be he that shall reverently cover their ruined master¬ 
pieces with whitewash ! 

Kenyon, however, being an earnest student and critic 
of Art, lingered long before these pathetic relics; and 
Donatello, in his present phase of penitence, thought no 
time spent amiss while he could be kneeling before an 
altar. Whenever they found a cathedral, therefore, or a 
Gothic church, the two travellers were of one mind to 
enter it. In some of these holy edifices they saw pictures 
that time had not dimmed nor injured in the least, though 
they perhaps belonged to as old a school of Art as any 
that were perishing around them. These were the painted 
windows; and as often as he gazed at them the sculptor 
blessed the mediaeval time, and its gorgeous contrivances 
of splendor ; for surely the skill of man has never accom¬ 
plished, nor his mind imagined, any other beauty or glory 
worthy to be compared with these. 

It is the special excellence of pictured glass, that the 
light, which falls merely on the outside of other pictures, 
is here interfused throughout the work; it illuminates 
the design, and invests it with a living radiance ; and 
in requital the unfading colors transmute the common 
daylight into a miracle of richness and glory in its pas¬ 
sage through the heavenly substance of the blessed and 
angelic shapes which throng the high-arched window. 

“ It is a woful thing,” cried Kenyon, while one of these 
frail, yet enduring and fadeless pictures threw its hues 
on his face, and on the pavement of the church around 


70 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


him, — “a sad necessity that any Christian soul should 
pass from earth without once seeing an antique painted 
window, with the bright Italian sunshine glowing through 
it! There is no other such true symbol of the glories of 
the better world, where a celestial radiance will be inher¬ 
ent in all things and persons, and render each continually 
transparent to the sight of all.” 

“ But what a horror it would be,” said Donatello, sadly, 
“ if there were a soul among them through which the light 
could not be transfused.” 

“ Yes ; and perhaps this is to be the punishment of sin,” 
replied the sculptor; “ not that it shall be made evident 
to the universe, which can profit nothing by such knowl¬ 
edge, but that it shall insulate the sinner from all sweet 
society by rendering him impermeable to light, and, there¬ 
fore, unrecognizable in the abode of heavenly simplicity 
and truth. Then what remains for him, but the dreari¬ 
ness of infinite and eternal solitude.” 

“ That would be a horrible destiny, indeed ! ” said Do¬ 
natello. 

His voice as he spoke the words had a hollow and 
dreary cadence, as if he anticipated some such frozen 
solitude for himself. A figure in a dark robe was lurking 
in the obscurity of a side-chapel close by, and made an 
impulsive movement forward, but hesitated as Donatello 
spoke again. 

“ But there might be a more miserable torture than to 
be solitary forever,” said he. “Think of having a single 
companion in eternity, and instead of finding any con¬ 
solation, or at all events variety of torture, to see your 
own weary, weary sin repeated in that inseparable soul.” 

“ I think, my dear count, you have never read Dante,” 
observed Kenyon. “That idea is somewhat in his style, 
but I cannot help regretting that it came into your mind 
just then.” 

The dark-robed figure had shrunk back, and was quite 
lost to sight among the shadows of the chapel. 

“There was an English poet,” resumed Kenyon, turn¬ 
ing again towards the window, “ who speaks of the ‘ dim, 
religious light,’ transmitted through painted glass. I 





BASILICA Dl S. PAOLO 






































PICTURED WINDOWS 


7 i 


always admired this richly descriptive phrase; but, though 
he was once in Italy, I question whether Milton ever 
saw any but the dingy pictures in the dusty windows of 
English cathedrals, imperfectly shown by the gray Eng¬ 
lish daylight. He would else have illuminated that word, 
‘ dim,’ with some epithet that should not chase away the 
dimness, yet should make it glow like a million of rubies, 
sapphires, emeralds, and topazes. Is it not so with yonder 
window ? The pictures are most brilliant in themselves, 
yet dim with tenderness and reverence, because God him¬ 
self is shining through them.” 

“ The pictures fill me with emotion, but not such as 
you seem to experience,” said Donatello. “ I tremble at 
those awful saints; and, most of all, at the figure above 
them. He glows with Divine wrath ! ” 

“ My dear friend,” exclaimed Kenyon, “ how strangely 
your eyes have transmuted the expression of the figure. 
It is divine love, not wrath.” 

“ To my eyes,” said Donatello, stubbornly, “ it is wrath, 
not love! Each must interpret for himself.” 

The friends left the church, and, looking up from the 
exterior, at the window which they had just been con¬ 
templating within, nothing was visible but the merest 
outline of dusky shapes. Neither the individual likeness 
of saint, angel, nor Saviour, and far less the combined 
scheme and purport of the picture, could anywise be 
made out. That miracle of radiant art, thus viewed, was 
nothing better than an incomprehensible obscurity, with¬ 
out a gleam of beauty to induce the beholder to attempt 
unravelling it. 

“ All this,” thought the sculptor, “is a most forcible 
emblem of the different aspect of religious truth and 
sacred story, as viewed from the warm interior of belief, 
or from its cold and dreary outside. Christian faith is a 
grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Stand¬ 
ing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine 
any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a har¬ 
mony of unspeakable splendors.” 

After Kenyon and Donatello emerged from the church, 
however, they had better opportunity for acts of charity 


72 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


and mercy than for religious contemplation ; being imme¬ 
diately surrounded by a swarm of beggars, who are the 
present possessors of Italy, and share the spoil of the 
stranger with the fleas and mosquitoes, their formidable 
allies. These pests — the human ones — had hunted the 
two travellers at every stage of their journey. From 
village to village, ragged boys and girls kept almost un¬ 
der the horses’ feet; hoary grandsires and grandames 
caught glimpses of their approach, and hobbled to inter¬ 
cept them at some point of vantage; blind men stared 
them out of countenance with their sightless orbs ; women 
held up their unwashed babies; cripples displayed their 
wooden legs, their grievous scars, their dangling, boneless 
arms, their broken backs, their burden of a hump, or 
whatever infirmity or deformity Providence had assigned 
them for an inheritance. On the highest mountain sum¬ 
mit — in the most shadowy ravine — there was a beggar 
waiting for them. In one small village, Kenyon had the 
curiosity to count merely how many children were crying, 
whining, and bellowing all at once for alms. They proved 
to be more than forty of as ragged and dirty little imps 
as any in the world; besides whom, all the wrinkled ma¬ 
trons, and most of the village maids, and not a few stal¬ 
wart men, held out their hands grimly, piteously, or 
smilingly, in the forlorn hope of whatever trifle of coin 
might remain in pockets already so fearfully taxed. Had 
they been permitted, they would gladly have knelt down 
and worshipped the travellers, and have cursed them, 
without rising from their knees, if the expected boon 
failed to be awarded. 

Yet they were not so miserably poor but that the 
grown people kept houses over their heads. In the way 
of food, they had, at least vegetables in their little gar¬ 
dens, pigs and chickens to kill, eggs to fry into omelets 
with oil, wine to drink, and many other things to make 
life comfortable. As for the children, when no more 
small coin appeared to be forthcoming, they began to 
laugh and play, and turn heels over head, showing them¬ 
selves jolly and vivacious brats, and evidently as well fed 
as needs be. The truth is, the Italian peasantry look 


PICTURED WINDOWS 


73 


upon strangers as the almoners of Providence, and there¬ 
fore feel no more shame in asking and receiving alms, 
than in availing themselves of providential bounties in 
whatever other form. 

In accordance with his nature, Donatello was always 
exceedingly charitable to these ragged battalions, and 
appeared to derive a certain consolation from the prayers 
which many of them put up in his behalf. In Italy a 
copper coin of minute value will often make all the differ¬ 
ence between a vindictive curse — death by apoplexy 
being the favorite one — mumbled in an old witch’s 
toothless jaws, and a prayer from the same lips, so ear¬ 
nest that it would seem to reward the charitable soul with 
at least a puff of grateful breath to help him heavenward. 
Good wishes being so cheap, though possibly not very 
efficacious, and anathemas so exceedingly bitter, — even 
if the greater portion of their poison remain in the mouth 
that utters them, — it may be wise to expend some rea¬ 
sonable amount in the purchase of the former. Dona¬ 
tello invariably did so; and as he distributed his alms 
under the pictured window, of which we have been speak¬ 
ing, no less than seven ancient women lifted their hands 
and besought blessings on his head. 

“Come,” said the sculptor, rejoicing at the happier 
expression which he saw in his friend’s face, “ I think 
your steed will not stumble with you to-day. Each of 
these old dames looks as much like Horace’s Atra Cura 
as can well be conceived; but, though there are seven 
of them, they will make your burden on horseback 
lighter instead of heavier.” 

“ Are we to ride far ? ” asked the count. 

“A tolerable journey betwixt now and to-morrow 
noon,” Kenyon replied; “for, at that hour, I purpose to 
be standing by the Pope’s statue in the great square of 
Perugia.” 


CHAPTER IX 


MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA 

P ERUGIA, on its lofty hill-top, was reached by the 
two travellers before th£ sun had quite kissed away 
the early freshness of the morning. Since midnight, 
there had been a heavy rain, bringing infinite refresh¬ 
ment to the scene of verdure and fertility amid which 
this ancient civilization stands; insomuch that Kenyon 
loitered, when they came to the gray city-wall, and was 
loth to give up the prospect of the sunny wilderness 
that lay below. It was as green as England, and bright 
as Italy alone. There was the wide valley, sweeping 
down and spreading away on all sides from the weed- 
grown ramparts, and bounded afar by mountains, which 
lay asleep in the sun, with thin mists and silvery clouds 
floating about their heads by way of morning dreams. 

“It lacks still two hours of noon,” said the sculptor to 
his friend, as they stood under the arch of the gateway, 
waiting for their passports to be examined; “ will you 
come with me to see some admirable frescoes by Peru- 
gino ? There is a hall in the Exchange, of no great 
magnitude, but covered with what must have been — at 
the time it was painted — such magnificence and beauty 
as the world had not elsewhere to show.” 

“ It depresses me to look at old frescoes,” responded 
the count; “ it is a pain, yet not enough of a pain to 
answer as a penance.” 

“Will you look at some pictures by Fra Angelico in 
the Church of San Domenico ? ” asked Kenyon ; “ they 
are full of religious sincerity. When one studies them 
faithfully, it is like holding a conversation about heavenly 
things with a tender and devout-minded man.” 

“You have shown me some of Fra Angelico’s pic- 
74 


MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA 


75 


tures, I remember,” answered Donatello; “his angels 
look as if they had never taken a flight out of heaven; 
and his saints seem to have been born saints, and always 
to have lived so. Young maidens, and all innocent 
persons, I doubt not, may find great delight and profit 
in looking at such holy pictures. But they are not for 
me.” 

“Your criticism, I fancy, has great moral depth,” re¬ 
plied Kenyon; “ and I see in it the reason why Hilda 
so highly appreciates Fra Angelico’s pictures. Well, 
we will let all such matters pass for to-day, and stroll 
about this fine old city till noon.” 

They wandered to and fro, accordingly, and lost 
themselves among the strange, precipitate passages, 
which, in Perugia, are called streets. Some of them 
are like caverns, being arched all over, and plunging 
down abruptly towards an unknown darkness; which, 
when you have fathomed its depths, admits you to a 
daylight that you scarcely hoped to behold again. Here 
they met shabby men, and the careworn wives and 
mothers of the people, some of whom guided children 
in leading-strings through those dim and antique thor¬ 
oughfares, where a hundred generations had passed 
before the little feet of to-day began to tread them. 
Thence they climbed upward again, and came to the 
level plateau, on the summit of the hill, where are situ¬ 
ated the grand piazza and the principal public edifices. 

It happened to be market-day in Perugia. The great 
square, therefore, presented a far more vivacious spec¬ 
tacle than would have been witnessed in it at any other 
time of the week, though not so lively as to overcome 
the gray solemnity of the architectural portion of the 
scene. In the shadow of the cathedral and other old 
Gothic structures — seeking shelter from the sunshine 
that fell across the rest of the piazza — was a crowd of 
people, engaged as buyers or sellers in the petty traffic 
of a country-fair. Dealers had erected booths and stalls 
on the pavement, and overspread them with scanty 
awnings, beneath which they stood, vociferously crying 
their merchandise; such as shoes, hats and caps, yarn 


76 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


stockings, cheap jewelry and cutlery, books, chiefly little 
volumes of a religious character, and a few French 
novels; toys, tin-ware, old iron, cloth, rosaries of beads, 
crucifixes, cakes, biscuits, sugar-plums, and innumerable 
little odds and ends, which we see no object in adver¬ 
tising. Baskets of grapes, figs, and pears stood on the 
ground. Donkeys, bearing panniers stuffed out with 
kitchen vegetables, and requiring an ample road-way, 
roughly shouldered aside the throng. 

Crowded as the square was, a juggler found room to 
spread out a white cloth upon the pavement, and cover 
it with cups, plates, balls, cards, — the whole material 
of his magic, in short, — wherewith he proceeded to 
work miracles under the noonday sun. An organ-grinder 
at one point, and a clarion and a flute at another, accom¬ 
plished what they could towards filling the wide space 
with tuneful noise. Their small uproar, however, was 
nearly drowned by the multitudinous voices of the people, 
bargaining, quarrelling, laughing, and babbling copiously 
at random; for the briskness of the mountain atmos¬ 
phere, or some other cause, made everybody so loqua¬ 
cious that more words were wasted in Perugia on this 
one market-day, than the noisiest piazza of Rome would 
utter in a month. 

Through all this petty tumult, which kept beguiling 
one’s eyes and upper strata of thought, it was delight¬ 
ful to catch glimpses of the grand old architecture that 
stood around the square. The life of the flitting mo¬ 
ment, existing in the antique shell of an age gone by, 
has a fascination which we do not find in either the 
past or present, taken by themselves. It might seem 
irreverent to make the gray cathedral and the tall, time¬ 
worn palaces echo back the exuberant vociferation of 
the market; but they did so, and caused the sound to 
assume a kind of poetic rhythm, and themselves looked 
only the more majestic for their condescension. 

On one side, there was an immense edifice devoted to 
public purposes, with an antique gallery, and a range 
of arched and stone-mullioned windows, running along 
its front; and by way of entrance it had a central Gothic 


MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA 


77 


arch, elaborately wreathed around with sculptured semi¬ 
circles, within which the spectator was aware of a stately 
and impressive gloom. Though merely the municipal 
council house and exchange of a decayed country town, 
this structure was worthy to have held in one portion 
of it the parliament-hall of a nation, and in the other, 
the state apartments of its ruler. On another side of 
the square rose the mediaeval front of the cathedral, 
where the imagination of a Gothic architect had long 
ago flowered out indestructibly, achieving, in the first 
place, a grand design, and then covering it with such 
abundant detail of ornament, that the magnitude of the 
work seemed less a miracle than its minuteness. You 
would suppose that he must have softened the stone 
into wax, until his most delicate fancies were modelled 
in the pliant material, and then had hardened it into 
stone again. The whole was a vast, black-letter page 
of the richest and quaintest poetry. In fit keeping with 
all this old magnificence, was a great marble fountain, 
where again the Gothic imagination showed its overflow 
and gratuity of device in the manifold sculptures which 
it lavished as freely as the water did its shifting shapes. 

Besides the two venerable structures which we have 
described, there were lofty palaces, perhaps of as old a 
date, rising story above story, and adorned with bal¬ 
conies, whence, hundreds of years ago, the princely 
occupants had been accustomed to gaze down at the 
sports, business, and popular assemblages of the piazza. 
And, beyond all question, they thus witnessed the erec¬ 
tion of a bronze statue, which, three centuries since, 
was placed on the pedestal that it still occupies. 

“ I never come to Perugia,” said Kenyon, “ without 
spending as much time as I can spare in studying yon¬ 
der statue of Pope Julius the Third. Those sculptors 
of the middle age have fitter lessons for the professors 
of my art than we can find in the Grecian masterpieces. 
They belong to our Christian civilization; and, being 
earnest works, they always express something which we 
do not get from the antique. Will you look at it ? ” 

“Willingly,” replied the count, “for I see, even so 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


78 

far off, that the statue is bestowing a benediction, and 
there is a feeling in my heart that I may be permitted 
to share it.” 

Remembering the similar idea which Miriam a short 
time before had expressed, the sculptor smiled hopefully 
at the coincidence. They made their way through the 
throng of the market-place, and approached close to the 
iron railing that protected the pedestal of the statue. 

It was the figure of a pope, arrayed in his pontifical 
robes, and crowned with the tiara. He sat in a bronze 
chair, elevated high above the pavement, and seemed to 
take kindly yet authoritative cognizance of the busy 
scene which was at that moment passing before his 
eyes. His right hand was raised and spread abroad, 
as if in the act of shedding forth a benediction, which 
every man — so broad, so wise, and so serenely affec¬ 
tionate was the bronze pope’s regard — might hope to 
feel quietly descending upon the need, or the distress, 
that he had closest at his heart. The statue had life and 
observation in it, as well as patriarchal majesty. An 
imaginative spectator could not but be impressed with 
the idea that this benignly awful representative of divine 
and human authority might rise from his brazen chair, 
should any great public exigency demand his interposi¬ 
tion, and encourage or restrain the people by his ges¬ 
ture, or even by prophetic utterances worthy of so grand 
a presence. 

And, in the long, calm intervals, amid the quiet lapse 
of ages, the pontiff watched the daily turmoil around 
his seat, listening with majestic patience to the market 
cries, and all the petty uproar that awoke the echoes of 
the stately old piazza. He was the enduring friend of 
these men, and of their forefathers and children, — the 
familiar face of generations. 

“ The pope’s blessing, methinks, has fallen upon you,” 
observed the sculptor, looking at his friend. 

In truth, Donatello’s countenance indicated a healthier 
spirit than while he was brooding in his melancholy 
tower. The change of scene, the breaking up of cus¬ 
tom, the fresh flow of incidents, the sense of being 


MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA 


79 


homeless, and therefore free, had done something for 
our poor Faun; these circumstances had at least pro¬ 
moted a reaction, which might else have been slower in 
its progress. Then, no doubt, the bright day, the gay 
spectacle of the market-place, and the sympathetic ex¬ 
hilaration of so many people’s cheerfulness, had each 
their suitable effect on a temper naturally prone to be 
glad. Perhaps, too, he was magnetically conscious of a 
presence that formerly sufficed to make him happy. Be 
the cause what it might, Donatello’s eyes shone with a 
serene and hopeful expression, while looking upward at 
the bronze pope, to whose widely diffused blessing, it 
may be, he attributed all this good influence. 

“Yes, my dear friend,” said he, in reply to the sculp¬ 
tor’s remark, “ I feel the blessing upon my spirit.” 

“ It is wonderful,” said Kenyon, with a smile, “won¬ 
derful and delightful to think how long a good man’s 
beneficence may be potent, even after his death. How 
great, then, must have been the efficacy of this excellent 
pontiff’s blessing while he was alive! ” 

“ I have heard,” remarked the count, “ that there was 
a brazen image set up in the Wilderness, the sight of 
which healed the Israelites of their poisonous and rank¬ 
ling wounds. If it be the blessed Virgin’s pleasure, why 
should not this holy image before us do me equal good ? 
A wound has long been rankling in my soul, and filling 
it with poison.” 

“ I did wrong to smile,” answered Kenyon. “ It is 
not for me to limit Providence in its operations on man’s 
spirit.” 

While they stood talking, the clock of the neighbor¬ 
ing cathedral told the hour, with twelve reverberating 
strokes, which it flung down upon the crowded market¬ 
place, as if warning one and all to take advantage of the 
bronze pontiff’s benediction, or of Heaven’s blessing, 
however proffered, before the opportunity were lost. 

“ High noon,” said the sculptor. “ It is Miriam’s 
hour! ” 


CHAPTER X 


THE BRONZE PONTIFF’S BENEDICTION 

HEN the last of the twelve strokes had fallen 



vv from the cathedral clock, Kenyon threw his eyes 
over the busy scene of the market-place, expecting to 
discern Miriam somewhere in the crowd. He looked 
next towards the cathedral itself, where it was reason¬ 
able to imagine that she might have taken shelter, while 
awaiting her appointed time. Seeing no trace of her in 
either direction, his eyes came back from their quest 
somewhat disappointed, and rested on a figure which 
was leaning, like Donatello and himself, on the iron 
balustrade that surrounded the statue. Only a moment 
before, they two had been alone. 

It was the figure of a woman, with her head bowed 
on her hands, as if she deeply felt — what we have been 
endeavoring to convey into our feeble description — the 
benign and awe-inspiring influence which the pontiff’s 
statue exercises upon a sensitive spectator. No matter 
though it were modelled for a Catholic chief priest, the 
desolate heart, whatever be its religion, recognizes in 
that image the likeness of a father. 

“ Miriam,” said the sculptor, with a tremor in his 
voice, “is it yourself ? ” 

“ It is I,” she replied; “I am faithful to my engage¬ 
ment, though with many fears.” 

She lifted her head, and revealed to Kenyon — re¬ 
vealed to Donatello likewise — the well-remembered 
features of Miriam. They were pale and worn, but dis¬ 
tinguished even now, though less gorgeously, by a 
beauty that might be imagined bright enough to glim¬ 
mer with its own light in a dim cathedral aisle, and had 
no need to shrink from the severer test of the mid-day 


So 


THE PONTIFF’S BENEDICTION 81 


sun. But she seemed tremulous, and hardly able to go 
through with a scene which at a distance she had found 
courage to undertake. 

“You are most welcome, Miriam ! ” said the sculptor, 
seeking to afford her the encouragement which he saw 
she so greatly required. “ I have a hopeful trust that 
the result of this interview will be propitious. Come; 
let me lead you to Donatello.” 

“ No, Kenyon, no! ” whispered Miriam, shrinking 
back ; “ unless of his own accord he speaks my name — 
unless he bids me stay — no word shall ever pass between 
him and me. It is not that I take upon me to be proud 
at this late hour. Among other feminine qualities, I 
threw away my pride when Hilda cast me off.” 

“If not pride, what else restrains you ? ” Kenyon 
asked, a little angry at her unseasonable scruples, and 
also at this half-complaining reference to Hilda’s just 
severity. “ After daring so much, it is no time for fear ! 
If we let him part from you without a word, your oppor¬ 
tunity of doing him inestimable good is lost forever.” 

“True; it will be lost forever!” repeated Miriam, 
sadly. “ But, dear friend, will it be my fault ? I will¬ 
ingly fling my woman’s pride at his feet. But— do you 
not see ? — his heart must be left freely to its own deci¬ 
sion whether to recognize me, because on his voluntary 
choice depends the whole question whether my devotion 
will do him good or harm. Except he feel an infinite 
need of me, I am a burden and fatal obstruction to him ! ” 

“Take your own course,then, Miriam,” said Kenyon ; 
“ and doubtless, the crisis being what it is, your spirit is 
better instructed for its emergencies than mine.” 

While the foregoing words had passed between them 
they had withdrawn a little from the immediate vicinity 
of the statue, so as to be out of Donatello’s hearing. 
Still, however, they were beneath the pontiff’s out¬ 
stretched hand ; and Miriam, with her beauty and her 
sorrow, looked up into his benignant face, as if she had 
come thither for his pardon and paternal affection, and 
despaired of so vast a boon. 

Meanwhile, she had not stood thus long in the public 


82 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


square of Perugia, without attracting the observation of 
many eyes. With their quick sense of beauty, these 
Italians had recognized her loveliness, and spared not to 
take their fill of gazing at it; though their native gentle¬ 
ness and courtesy made their homage far less obtrusive 
than that of Germans, French, or Anglo-Saxons might 
have been. It is not improbable that Miriam had 
planned this momentous interview, on so public a spot 
and at high noon, with an eye to the sort of protection 
that would be thrown over it by a multitude of eye-wit¬ 
nesses. In circumstances of profound feeling and pas¬ 
sion, there is often a sense that too great a seclusion 
cannot be endured ; there is an indefinite dread of being 
quite alone with the object of our deepest interest. The 
species of solitude that a crowd harbors within itself, is 
felt to be preferable, in certain conditions of the heart, 
to the remoteness of a desert or the depths of an untrod¬ 
den wood. Hatred, love, or whatever kind of too intense 
emotion, or even indifference, where emotion has once 
been, instinctively seeks to interpose some barrier be¬ 
tween itself and the corresponding passion in another 
breast. This, we suspect, was what Miriam had thought 
of, in coming to the thronged piazza; partly this, and 
partly, as she said, her superstition that the benign 
statue held good influences in store. 

But Donatello remained leaning against the balus¬ 
trade. She dared not glance towards him, to see 
whether he were pale and agitated, or calm as ice. 
Only, she knew that the moments were fleetly lapsing 
away, and that his heart must call her soon, or the 
voice would never reach her. She turned quite away 
from him and spoke again to the sculptor. 

“ I have wished to meet you,” said she, “ for more 
than one reason. News have come to me respecting 
a dear friend of ours. Nay, not of mine! I dare not 
call her a friend of mine, though once the dearest.” 

“Do you speak of Hilda?” exclaimed Kenyon, with 
quick alarm. “Has anything befallen her? When I 
last heard of her, she was still in Rome, and well.” 

“Hilda remains in Rome,” replied Miriam, “nor is 


THE PONTIFF’S BENEDICTION 83 

she ill as regards physical health, though much de¬ 
pressed in spirits. She lives quite alone' in her dove¬ 
cote ; not a friend near her, not one in Rome, which, 
you know, is deserted by all but its native inhabitants. 
I fear for her health, if she continue long in such soli¬ 
tude, with despondency preying on her mind. I tell 
you this, knowing the interest which the rare beauty 
of her character has awakened in you.” 

“ I will go to Rome! ” said the sculptor, in great emo¬ 
tion. “ Hilda has never allowed me to manifest more 
than a friendly regard; but, at least, she cannot prevent 
my watching over her at a humble distance. I will set 
out this very hour.” 

“ Do not leave us now! ” whispered Miriam, implor¬ 
ingly, and laying her hand on his arm. “ One moment 
more ! Ah ; he has no word for me ! ” 

“ Miriam ! ” said Donatello. 

Though but a single word, and the first that he had 
spoken, its tone was a warrant of the sad and tender 
depth from which it came. It told Miriam things of infi¬ 
nite importance, and, first of all, that he still loved her. 
The sense of their mutual crime had stunned, but not 
destroyed the vitality of his affection ; it was therefore 
indestructible. That tone, too, bespoke an altered and 
deepened character; it told of a vivified intellect, and 
of spiritual instruction that had come through sorrow 
and remorse; so that instead of the wild boy, the thing 
of sportive, animal nature, the sylvan Faun — here was 
now the man of feeling and intelligence. 

She turned towards him, while his voice still reverber¬ 
ated in the depths of her soul. 

“ You have called me ! ” said she. 

“ Because my deepest heart has need of you! ” he 
replied. “ Forgive, Miriam, the coldness, the hardness, 
with which I parted from you! I was bewildered with 
strange horror and gloom.” 

“ Alas ! and it was I that brought it on you,” said she. 
“ What repentance, what self-sacrifice, can atone for 
that infinite wrong ? There was something so sacred in 
the innocent and joyous life which you were leading! 


8 4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


A happy person is such an unaccustomed and holy 
creature in this sad world! And, encountering so rare 
a being, and gifted with the power of sympathy with his 
sunny life, it was my doom, mine, to bring him within 
the limits of sinful, sorrowful mortality! Bid me de¬ 
part, Donatello ! Fling me off ! No good, through my 
agency, can follow upon such a mighty evil! ” 

“ Miriam,” said he, “ our lot lies together. Is it not 
so ? Tell me, in Heaven’s name, if it be otherwise ? ” 

Donatello’s conscience was evidently perplexed with 
doubt, whether the communion of a crime, such as they 
two were jointly stained with, ought not to stifle all the 
instinctive motions of their hearts, impelling them one 
towards the other. Miriam, on the other hand, remorse¬ 
fully questioned with herself, whether the misery, al¬ 
ready accruing from her influence, should not warn her 
to withdraw from his path. In this momentous inter¬ 
view, therefore, two souls were groping for each other in 
the darkness of guilt and sorrow, and hardly were bold 
enough to grasp the cold hands that they found. 

The sculptor stood watching the scene with earnest 
sympathy. 

“It seems irreverent,” said he, at length, “intrusive, 
if not irreverent, for a third person to thrust himself 
between the two solely concerned in a crisis like the 
present. Yet, possibly as a bystander, though a deeply 
interested one, I may discern somewhat of truth that is 
hidden from you both; nay, at least interpret or suggest 
some ideas which you might not so readily convey to 
each other.” 

“ Speak ! ” said Miriam ; “ we confide in you.” 

“Speak!” said Donatello. “You are true and up¬ 
right.” 

“I well know,” rejoined Kenyon, “that I shall not 
succeed in uttering the few, deep words which, in this 
matter, as in all others, include the absolute truth. But, 
here, Miriam, is one whom a terrible misfortune has be¬ 
gun to educate; it has taken him, and through your 
agency, out of a wild and happy state, which, within cir¬ 
cumscribed limits, gave him joys that he cannot else- 


THE PONTIFF’S BENEDICTION 85 

where find on earth. On his behalf, you have incurred 
a responsibility which you cannot fling aside. And 
here, Donatello, is one whom Providence marks out as 
intimately connected with your destiny. The mysteri¬ 
ous process, by which our earthly life instructs us for 
another state of being, was begun for you by her. She 
has rich gifts of heart and mind, a suggestive power, a 
magnetic influence, a sympathetic knowledge, which, 
wisely and religiously exercised, are what your condition 
needs. She possesses what you require, and, with utter 
self-devotion, will use it for your good. The bond be¬ 
twixt you, therefore, is a true one, and never — except 
by Heaven’s own act — should be rent asunder.” 

“ Ah, he has spoken the truth! ” cried Donatello, 
grasping Miriam’s hand. 

“ The very truth, dear friend,” cried Miriam. 

“ But take heed,” resumed the sculptor, anxious not 
to violate the integrity of his own conscience. “Take 
heed; for you love one another, and yet your bond is 
twined with such black threads, that you must never 
look upon it as identical with the ties that unite other 
loving souls. It is for mutual support; it is for one 
another’s final good; it is for effort, for sacrifice, but not 
for earthly happiness. If such be your motive, believe 
me, friends, it were better to relinquish each other’s 
hands at this sad moment. There would be no holy 
sanction on your wedded life.” 

“ None,” said Donatello, shuddering. “We know it 
well.” 

“None,” repeated Miriam, also shuddering. “United 
— miserably entangled with me, rather — by a bond of 
guilt, our union might be for eternity, indeed, and most 
intimate ; but, through all that endless duration, I should 
be conscious of his horror.” 

“Not for earthly bliss, therefore,” said Kenyon, “but 
for mutual elevation, and encouragement towards a 
severe and painful life, you take each other’s hands. 
And if, out of toil, sacrifice, prayer, penitence, and earnest 
effort towards right things, there comes, at length, a 
sombre and thoughtful happiness, taste it, and thank 


86 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Heaven! So that you live not for it — so that it be a 
wayside flower, springing along a path that leads to 
higher ends — it will be Heaven’s gracious gift, and a 
token that it recognizes your union here below.” 

“ Have you no more to say?” asked Miriam, earnestly. 
“ There is matter of sorrow and lofty consolation strangely 
mingled in your words.” 

“ Only this, dear Miriam,” said the sculptor ; “ if ever 
in your lives, the highest duty should require from 
either of you the sacrifice of the other, meet the occasion 
without shrinking. This is all.” 

While Kenyon spoke, Donatello had evidently taken 
in the ideas which he propounded, and had ennobled 
them by the sincerity of his reception. His aspect un¬ 
consciously assumed a dignity, which, elevating his for¬ 
mer beauty, accorded with the change that had long 
been taking place in his interior self. He was a man, 
revolving grave and deep thoughts in his breast. He 
still held Miriam’s hand; and there they stood, the 
beautiful man, the beautiful woman, united forever, as 
they felt, in the presence of these thousand eye-witnesses, 
who gazed so curiously at the unintelligible scene. 
Doubtless, the crowd recognized them as lovers, and 
fancied this a betrothal that was destined to result in 
life-long happiness. And, possibly, it might be so. 
Who can tell where happiness may come; or where, 
though an expected guest, it may never show its face ? 
Perhaps — shy, subtle thing — it had crept into this sad 
marriage-bond, when the partners would have trembled 
at its presence as a crime. 

“ Farewell! ” said Kenyon, “ I go to Rome.” 

“ Farewell, true friend ! ” said Miriam. 

“ Farewell! ” said Donatello, too. “ May you be 
happy. You have no guilt to make you shrink from 
happiness.” 

At this moment it so chanced that all the three friends 
by one impulse glanced upward at the statue of Pope 
Julius; and there was the majestic figure stretching out 
the hand of benediction over them, and bending down 
upon this guilty and repentant pair its visage of grand 


THE PONTIFF’S BENEDICTION 87 

benignity. There is a singular effect oftentimes when, 
out of the midst of engrossing thought and deep absorp¬ 
tion, we suddenly look up, and catch a glimpse of ex¬ 
ternal objects. We seem at such moments to look 
farther and deeper into them, than by any premeditated 
observation; it is as if they met our eyes alive, and with 
all their hidden meaning on the surface, but grew again 
inanimate and inscrutable the instant that they became 
aware of our glances. So now at that unexpected 
glimpse, Miriam, Donatello, and the sculptor, all three 
imagined that they beheld the bronze pontiff endowed 
with spiritual life. A blessing was felt descending upon 
them from his outstretched hand; he approved by look 
and gesture the pledge of a deep union that had passed 
under his auspices. 


CHAPTER XI 


Hilda’s tower 

W HEN we have once known Rome, and left her 
where she lies, like a long-decaying corpse, re¬ 
taining a trace of the noble shape it was, but with accu¬ 
mulated dust and a fungous growth overspreading all its 
more admirable features — left her in utter weariness, no 
doubt, of her narrow, crooked, intricate streets, so un¬ 
comfortably paved with little squares of lava that to 
tread over them is a penitential pilgrimage, so indescrib¬ 
ably ugly, moreover, so cold, so alley-like, into which 
the sun never falls, and where a chill wind forces its 
deadly breath into our lungs — left her, tired of the sight 
of those immense seven-storied, yellow-washed hovels, 
or call them palaces, where all that is dreary in domestic 
life seems magnified and multiplied, and weary of climb¬ 
ing those staircases, which ascend from a ground-floor 
of cook-shops, cobblers’ stalls, stables, and regiments of 
cavalry, to a middle region of princes, cardinals, and 
ambassadors, and an upper tier of artists, just beneath 
the unattainable sky — left her, worn out with shivering 
at the cheerless and smoky fireside by day, and feasting 
with our own substance the ravenous little populace of 
a Roman bed at night — left her, sick at heart of Italian 
trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man’s 
integrity had endured till now, and sick at stomach of 
sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad cookery, 
needlessly bestowed on evil meats — left her, disgusted 
with the pretence of holiness and the reality of nastiness, 
each equally omnipresent — left her, half lifeless from 
the languid atmosphere, the vital principle of which has 
been used up long ago, .or corrupted by myriads of 
slaughters — left her, crushed down in spirit with the 

88 


HILDA’S TOWER 


89 


desolation of her ruin, and the hopelessness of her future 

— left her, in short, hating her with all our might, and 
adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema 
which her old crimes have unmistakably brought down, 

— when we have left Rome in such mood as this, we are 
astonished by the discovery, by and by, that our heart¬ 
strings have mysteriously attached themselves to the 
Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as 
if it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than 
even the spot where we were born. 

It is with a kindred sentiment, that we now follow the 
course of our story back through the Flaminian Gate, 
and, treading our way to the Via Portoghese, climb the 
staircase to the upper chamber of the tower, where we 
last saw Hild^y 

Hilda all along intended to pass the summer in Rome; 
for she had laid out many high and delightful tasks, 
which she could the better complete while her favorite 
haunts were deserted by the multitude that thronged 
them, throughout the winter and early spring. Nor did 
she dread the summer atmosphere, although generally 
held to be so pestilential. She had already made trial 
of it, two years before, and found no worse effect than a 
kind of dreamy languor, which was dissipated by the 
first cool breezes that came with autumn. The thickly 
populated centre of the city, indeed, is never affected by 
the feverish influence that lies in wait in the Campagna, 
like a besieging foe, and nightly haunts those beautiful 
lawns and woodlands, around the suburban villas, just 
at the season when they most resemble Paradise. What 
the flaming sword was to the first Eden, such is the 
malaria to these sweet gardens and groves. We may 
wander through them, of an afternoon, it is true, but 
they cannot be made a home and a reality, and to sleep 
among them is death. They are but illusions, therefore, 
like the show of gleaming waters and shadowy foliage in 
a desert. 

But Rome, within the walls, at this dreaded season, 
enjoys its festal days, and makes itself merry with char¬ 
acteristic and hereditary pastimes, for which its broad 


9 ° 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


piazzas afford abundant room. It leads its own life with 
a freer spirit, now that the artists and foreign visitors are 
scattered abroad. No bloom, perhaps, would be visible 
in a cheek that should be unvisited, throughout the sum¬ 
mer, by more invigorating winds than any within fifty 
miles of the city; no bloom, but yet, if the mind kept 
its healthy energy, a subdued and colorless well-being. 
There was consequently little risk in Hilda’s purpose to 
pass the summer days in the galleries of Roman palaces, 
and her nights in that aerial chamber, whither the heavy 
breath of the city and its suburbs could not aspire. It 
would probably harm her no more than it did the white 
doves, who sought the same high atmosphere at sunset, 
and, when morning came, flew down into the narrow 
streets, about their daily business, as Hilda likewise did. 

With the Virgin’s aid and blessing, which might be 
hoped for even by a heretic, who so religiously lit the 
lamp before her shrine, the New England girl would 
sleep securely in her old Roman tower, and go forth on 
her pictorial pilgrimages without dread or peril. In 
view of such a summer, Hilda had anticipated many 
months of lonely, but unalloyed enjoyment. Not that 
she had a churlish disinclination to society, or needed to 
be told that we taste one intellectual pleasure twice, and 
with double the result, when we taste it with a friend. 
But, keeping a maiden heart within her bosom, she 
rejoiced in the freedom that enabled her still to choose 
her own sphere, and dwell in it, if she pleased, without 
another inmate. 

Her expectation, however, of a delightful summer was 
wofully disappointed. Even had she formed no previ¬ 
ous plan of remaining there, it is improbable that Hilda 
would have gathered energy to stir from Rome. A tor¬ 
por, heretofore unknown to her vivacious though quiet 
temperament, had possessed itself of the poor girl, like a 
half-dead serpent knotting its cold, inextricable wreaths 
about her limbs. It was that peculiar despair, that chill 
and heavy misery, which only the innocent can experi¬ 
ence, although it possesses many of the gloomy char¬ 
acteristics that mark a sense of guilt. It was that 


HILDA’S TOWER 


9 1 


heart-sickness, which, it is to be hoped, we may all of 
us have been pure enough to feel, once in our lives, but 
the capacity for which is usually exhausted early, and 
perhaps with a single agony. It was that dismal cer¬ 
tainty of the existence of evil in the world, which, though 
we may fancy ourselves fully assured of the sad mystery 
long before, never becomes a portion of our practical 
belief until it takes substance and reality from the sin of 
some guide, whom we have deeply trusted and revered, 
or some friend whom we have dearly loved. 

When that knowledge comes, it is as if a cloud had 
suddenly gathered over the morning light; so dark a 
cloud, that there seems to be no longer any sunshine 
behind it or above it. The character of our individual 
beloved one having invested itself with all the attributes 
of right, — that one friend being to us the symbol and 
representative of whatever is good and true, — when he 
falls, the effect is almost as if the sky fell with him, 
bringing down in chaotic ruin the columns that upheld 
our faith. We struggle forth again, no doubt, bruised 
and bewildered. We stare wildly about us, and discover 
— or, it may be, we never make the discovery — that it 
was not actually the sky that has tumbled down, but 
merely a frail structure of our own rearing, which never 
rose higher than the house-tops, and has fallen because 
we founded it on nothing. But the crash, and the 
affright and trouble, are as overwhelming, for the time, 
as if the catastrophe involved the whole moral world. 
Remembering these things, let them suggest one gener¬ 
ous motive for walking heedfully amid the defilement 
of earthly ways! Let us reflect, that the highest path 
is pointed out by the pure Ideal of those who look up 
to us, and who, if we tread less loftily, may never look so 
high again. 

Hilda’s situation was made infinitely more wretched 
by the necessity of confining all her trouble within her 
own consciousness. To this innocent girl, holding the 
knowledge of Miriam’s crime within her tender and deli¬ 
cate soul, the effect was almost the same as if she her¬ 
self had participated in the guilt. Indeed, partaking the 


92 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


human nature of those who could perpetrate such deeds, 
she felt her own spotlessness impugned. 

Had there been but a single friend — or, not a friend, 
since friends were no longer to be confided in, after 
Miriam had betrayed her trust — but, had there been 
any calm, wise mind, any sympathizing intelligence; or, 
if not these, any dull, half-listening ear into which she 
might have flung the dreadful secret, as into an echoless 
cavern — what a relief would have ensued! But this 
awful loneliness! It enveloped her whithersoever she 
went. It was a shadow in the sunshine of festal days ; 
a mist between her eyes and the pictures at which she 
strove to look; a chill dungeon, which kept her in its 
gray twilight and fed her with its unwholesome air, fit 
only for a criminal to breathe and pine in ! She could 
not escape from it. In the effort to do so, straying far¬ 
ther into the intricate passages of our nature, she stum¬ 
bled, ever and again, over this deadly idea of mortal 
guilt. 

Poor sufferer for another’s sin ! Poor wellspring of a 
virgin’s heart, into which a murdered corpse had casually 
fallen, and whence it could not be drawn forth again, 
but lay there, day after day, night after night, tainting 
its sweet atmosphere with the scent of crime and ugly 
death ! 

The strange sorrow that had befallen Hilda did not 
fail to impress its mysterious seal upon her face, and to 
make itself perceptible to sensitive observers in her man¬ 
ner and carriage. A young Italian artist, who frequented 
the same galleries which Hilda haunted, grew deeply in¬ 
terested in her expression. One day, while she stood 
before Leonardo da Vinci’s picture of Joanna of Arragon, 
but evidently without seeing it, — for, though it had at¬ 
tracted her eyes, a fancied resemblance to Miriam had 
immediately drawn away her thoughts, — this artist drew 
a hasty sketch which he afterwards elaborated into a 
finished portrait. It represented Hilda as gazing with 
sad and earnest horror at a blood-spot which she seemed 
just then to have discovered on her white robe. The 
picture attracted considerable notice. Copies of an en- 


HILDA’S TOWER 


93 


graving from it may still be found in the print-shops 
along the Corso. By many connoisseurs, the idea of the 
face was supposed to have been suggested by the portrait 
of Beatrice Cenci; and, in fact, there was a look some¬ 
what similar to poor Beatrice’s forlorn gaze out of the 
dreary isolation and remoteness, in which a terrible doom 
had involved a tender soul. But the modern artist 
strenuously upheld the originality of his own picture, as 
well as the stainless purity of its subject, and chose to 
call it — and was laughed at for his pains — “ Innocence, 
dying of a blood-stain ! ” 

“Your picture, Signor Panini, does you credit,” re¬ 
marked the picture-dealer, who had bought it of the 
young man for fifteen scudi, and afterwards sold it for 
ten times the sum ; “ but it would be worth a better price 
if you had given it a more intelligible title. Looking at 
the face and expression of this fair signorina, we seem to 
comprehend readily enough, that she is undergoing one 
or another of those troubles of the heart to which young 
ladies are but too liable. But what is this blood-stain ? 
And what has innocence to do with it ? Has she stabbed 
her perfidious lover with a bodkin ? ” 

“ She ! she commit a crime! ” cried the young artist. 
“ Can you look at the innocent anguish in her face, and 
ask that question ? No; but, as I read the mystery, a 
man has been slain in her presence, and the blood, spirt¬ 
ing accidentally on her white robe, has made a stain 
which eats into her life.” 

“ Then, in the name of her patron saint,” exclaimed 
the picture-dealer, “ why don’t she get the robe made 
white again at the expense of a few baiocchi to her 
washerwoman ? No, no, my dear Panini. The picture 
being now my property, I shall call it * The Signorina’s 
Vengeance.’ She has stabbed her lover overnight, and 
is repenting it betimes the next morning. So interpreted, 
the picture becomes an intelligible and very natural rep¬ 
resentation of a not uncommon fact.” 

Thus coarsely does the world translate all finer griefs 
that meet its eye. It is more a coarse world than an 
unkind one. 


94 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


But Hilda sought nothing either from the world’s deli¬ 
cacy or its pity, and never dreamed of its misinterpreta¬ 
tions. Her doves often flew in through the windows of 
the tower, winged messengers, bringing her what sym¬ 
pathy they could, and uttering soft, tender, and complain¬ 
ing sounds, deep in their bosoms, which soothed the girl 
more than a distincter utterance might. And sometimes 
Hilda moaned quietly among the doves, teaching her 
voice to accord with theirs, and thus finding a temporary 
relief from the burden of her incommunicable sorrow, as 
if a little portion of it, at least, had been told to these 
innocent friends, and been understood and pitied. 

When she trimmed the lamp before the Virgin’s shrine, 
Hilda gazed at the sacred image, and, rude as was the 
workmanship, beheld, or fancied, expressed with the 
quaint, powerful simplicity which sculptors sometimes 
had five hundred years ago, a woman’s tenderness re¬ 
sponding to her gaze. If she knelt, if she prayed, if her 
oppressed heart besought the sympathy of divine woman¬ 
hood afar in bliss, but not remote, because forever hu¬ 
manized by the memory of mortal griefs, was Hilda to 
be blamed ? It was not a Catholic kneeling at an idola¬ 
trous shrine, but a child lifting its tear-stained face to 
seek comfort from a mother. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES 

H ILDA descended, day by day, from her dove-cote, 
and went to one or another of the great, old pal¬ 
aces, — the Pamfili Doria, the Corsini, the Sciarra, the 
Borghese, the Colonna, — where the door-keepers knew 
her well, and offered her a kindly greeting. But they 
shook their heads and sighed, on observing the languid 
step with which the poor girl toiled up the grand marble 
staircases. There was no more of that cheery alacrity 
with which she used to flit upward, as if her doves had 
lent her their wings, nor of that glow of happy spirits 
which had been wont to set the tarnished gilding of the 
picture-frames and the shabby splendor of the furniture 
all a-glimmer, as she hastened to her congenial and de¬ 
lightful toil. 

An old German artist, whom she often met in the 
galleries, once laid a paternal hand on Hilda’s head, 
and bade her go back to her own country. 

“ Go back soon,” he said, with kindly freedom and 
directness, “or you will go never more. And, if you 
go not, why, at least, do you spend the whole summer¬ 
time in Rome ? The air has been breathed too often, 
in so many thousand years, and is not wholesome for a 
little foreign flower like you, my child, a delicate wood- 
anemone from the western forest-land.” 

“ I have no task nor duty anywhere but here,” replied 
Hilda. “ The old masters will not set me free ! ” 

“ Ah, those old masters! ” cried the veteran artist, 
shaking his head. “ They are a tyrannous race ! You 
will find them of too mighty a spirit to be dealt with, 
for long together, by the slender hand, the fragile mind, 

95 


9 6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


and the delicate heart of a young girl. Remember that 
Raphael’s genius wore out that divinest painter before 
half his life was lived. Since you feel his influence 
powerfully enough to reproduce his miracles so well, 
it will assuredly consume you like a flame.” 

“That might have been my peril once,” answered 
Hilda. “ It is not so now.” 

“ Yes, fair maiden, you stand in that peril now! ” 
insisted the kind old man; and he added, smiling, yet 
in a melancholy vein, and with a German grotesqueness 
of idea, “ Some fine morning, I shall come to the Pina- 
cotheca of the Vatican, with my palette and my brushes, 
and shall look for my little American artist that sees 
into the very heart of the grand pictures! And what 
shall I behold ? A heap of white ashes on the marble 
floor, just in front of the divine Raphael’s picture of the 
Madonna da Foligno! Nothing more, upon my word! 
The fire, which the poor child feels so fervently, will 
have gone into her innermost, and burnt her quite up! ” 

“ It would be a happy martyrdom! ” said Hilda, 
faintly smiling. “ But I am far from being worthy of 
it. What troubles me much, among other troubles, is 
quite the reverse of what you think. The old masters 
hold me here, it is true, but they no longer warm me 
with their influence. It is not flame consuming, but 
torpor chilling me, that helps to make me wretched.” 

“ Perchance, then,” said the German, looking keenly 
at her, “ Raphael has a rival in your heart ? He was 
your first-love; but young maidens are not always 
constant, and one flame is sometimes extinguished by 
another! ” 

Hilda shook her head, and turned away. 

She had spoken the truth, however, in alleging that 
torpor, rather than fire, was what she had now to dread. 
In those gloomy days that had befallen her, it was a 
great additional calamity that she felt conscious of the 
present dimness of an insight, which she once possessed 
in more than ordinary measure. She had lost — and she 
trembled lest it should have departed forever—the faculty 
of appreciating those great works of art, which hereto- 


PICTURE-GALLERY EMPTINESS 97 

fore had made so large a portion of her happiness. It 
was no wonder. 

A picture, however admirable the painter’s art, and 
wonderful his power, requires of the spectator a sur¬ 
render of himself, in due proportion with the miracle 
which has been wrought. Let the canvas glow as it 
may, you must look with the eye of faith, or its highest 
excellence escapes you. There is always the necessity 
of helping out the painter’s art with your own resources 
of sensibility and imagination. Not that these qualities 
shall really add anything to what the master has effected; 
but they must be put so entirely under his control, and 
work along with him to such an extent, that, in a differ¬ 
ent mood, when you are cold and critical, instead of 
sympathetic, you will be apt to fancy that the loftier 
merits of the picture were of your own dreaming, not 
of his creating. 

Like all revelations of the better life, the adequate 
perception of a great work of art demands a gifted 
simplicity of vision. In this, and in her self-surrender, 
and the depth and tenderness of her sympathy, had lain 
Hilda’s remarkable power as a copyist of the old masters. 
And now that her capacity of emotion was choked up 
with a horrible experience, it inevitably followed that 
she should seek in vain, among those friends so vener¬ 
ated and beloved, for the marvels which they had here¬ 
tofore shown her. In spite of a reverence that lingered 
longer than her recognition, their poor worshipper be¬ 
came almost an infidel, and sometimes doubted whether 
the pictorial art be not altogether a delusion. 

For the first time in her life, Hilda now grew ac¬ 
quainted with that icy demon of weariness, who haunts 
great picture-galleries. He is a plausible Mephistopheles, 
and possesses the magic that is the destruction of all 
other magic. He annihilates color, warmth, and, more 
especially, sentiment and passion, at a touch. If he 
spare anything, it will be some such matter as an earthen 
pipkin, or a bunch of herrings by Teniers; a brass kettle, 
in which you can see your face, by Gerard Douw; a 
furred robe, or the silken texture of a mantle, or a straw 


9 8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


hat, by Van Mieris; or a long-stalked wineglass, trans- 
parent and full of shifting reflection, or a bit of bread 
and cheese, or an over-ripe peach, with a fly upon it, 
truer than reality itself, by the school of Dutch con¬ 
jurers. These men, and a few Flemings, whispers the 
wicked demon, were the only painters. The mighty 
Italian masters, as you deem them, were not human, 
nor addressed their work to human sympathies, but to 
a false intellectual taste, which they themselves were 
the first to create. Well might they call their doings 
“art,” for they substituted art instead of nature. Their 
fashion is past, and ought, indeed, to have died and 
been buried along with them. 

Then there is such a terrible lack of variety in their 
subjects. The churchmen, their great patrons, suggested 
most of their themes, and a dead mythology the rest. A 
quarter-part, probably, of any large collection of pictures, 
consists of Virgins and infant Christs, repeated over and 
over again in pretty much an identical spirit, and gener¬ 
ally with no more mixture of the Divine than just enough 
to spoil them as representations of maternity and child¬ 
hood, with which everybody’s heart might have some¬ 
thing to do. Half of the other pictures are Magdalens, 
Flights into Egypt, Crucifixions, Depositions from the 
Cross, Pietas, Noli-me-tangeres, or the Sacrifice of Abra¬ 
ham, or martyrdoms of saints, originally painted as altar- 
pieces, or for the shrines of chapels, and wofully lacking 
the accompaniments which the artist had in view. 

The remainder of the gallery comprises mythological 
subjects, such as nude Venuses, Ledas, Graces, and, in 
short, a general apotheosis of nudity, once fresh and rosy 
perhaps, but yellow and dingy in our day, and retaining 
only a traditionary charm. These impure pictures are 
from the same illustrious and impious hands that adven¬ 
tured to call before us the august forms of Apostles 
and Saints, the Blessed Mother of the Redeemer, and 
her Son, at his death, and in his glory, and even the 
awfulness of Him to whom the martyrs, dead a thousand 
years ago, have not yet dared to raise their eyes. They 
seem to take up one task or the other — the disrobed 


PICTURE-GALLERY EMPTINESS 99 

woman whom they call Venus, or the type of highest and 
tenderest womanhood in the mother of their Saviour — 
with equal readiness, but to achieve the former with far 
more satisfactory success. If an artist sometimes pro¬ 
duced a picture of the Virgin, possessing warmth enough 
to excite devotional feelings, it was probably the object 
of his earthly love to whom he thus paid the stupendous 
and fearful homage of setting up her portrait to be wor¬ 
shipped, not figuratively as a mortal, but by religious souls 
in their earnest aspirations towards Divinity. And who 
can trust the religious sentiment of Raphael, or receive 
any of his Virgins as heaven-descended likenesses, after 
seeing, for example, the Fornarina of the Barberini pal¬ 
ace, and feeling how sensual the artist must have been to 
paint such a brazen trollop of his own accord, and lov¬ 
ingly ? Would the Blessed Mary reveal herself to his 
spiritual vision, and favor him with sittings alternately 
with that type of glowing earthliness, the Fornarina? 

But no sooner have we given expression to this irrev¬ 
erent criticism, than a throng of spiritual faces look re¬ 
proachfully upon us. We see cherubs by Raphael, whose 
baby-innocence could only have been nursed in paradise; 
angels by Raphael as innocent as they, but whose serene 
intelligence embraces both earthly and celestial things ; 
madonnas by Raphael, on whose lips he has impressed a 
holy and delicate reserve, implying sanctity on earth, and 
into whose soft eyes he has thrown a light which he never 
could have imagined except by raising his own eyes with 
a pure aspiration heavenward. We remember, too, that 
divinest countenance in the Transfiguration, and with¬ 
draw all that we have said. 

Poor Hilda, however, in her gloomiest moments, was 
never guilty of the high treason suggested in the above 
remarks against her beloved and honored Raphael. She 
had a faculty (which, fortunately for themselves, pure 
women often have) of ignoring all moral blotches in 
a character that won her admiration. She purified the 
objects of her regard by the mere act of turning such 
spotless eyes upon them. 

Hilda’s despondency, nevertheless, while it dulled her 


IOO 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


perceptions in one respect, had deepened them in an¬ 
other ; she saw beauty less vividly, but felt truth or the 
lack of it, more profoundly. She began to suspect that 
some, at least, of her venerated painters, had left an 
inevitable hollowness in their works, because, in the most 
renowned of them, they essayed to express to the world 
what they had not in their own souls. They deified their 
light and wandering affections, and were continually play¬ 
ing off the tremendous jest, alluded to above, of offering 
the features of some venal beauty to be enshrined in the 
holiest places. A deficiency of earnestness and absolute 
truth is generally discoverable in Italian pictures, after 
the art had become consummate. When you demand 
what is deepest, these painters have not wherewithal to 
respond. They substituted a keen intellectual percep¬ 
tion, and a marvellous knack of external arrangement, 
instead of the live sympathy and sentiment which should 
have been their inspiration. And hence it happens, that 
shallow and worldly men are among the best critics of 
their works ; a taste for pictorial art is often no more 
than a polish upon the hard enamel of an artificial char¬ 
acter. Hilda had lavished her whole heart upon it, and 
found (just as if she had lavished it upon a human idol) 
that the greater part was thrown away. 

For some of the earlier painters, however, she still 
retained much of her former reverence. Fra Angelico, 
she felt, must have breathed a humble aspiration between 
every two touches of his brush, in order to have made 
the finished picture such a visible prayer as we behold it, 
in the guise of a prim angel, or a saint without the human 
nature. Through all these dusky centuries, his works 
may still help a struggling heart to pray. Perugino was 
evidently a devout man; and the Virgin therefore revealed 
herself to him in loftier and sweeter faces of celestial 
womanhood, and yet with a kind of homeliness in their 
human mould, than even the genius of Raphael could 
imagine. Sodoma, beyond a question, both prayed and 
wept, while painting his fresco, at Siena, of Christ bound 
to a pillar. 

In her present need and hunger for a spiritual reve- 


PICTURE-GALLERY EMPTINESS 


IOI 


lation, Hilda felt a vast and weary longing to see this 
last-mentioned picture once again. It is inexpressibly 
touching. So weary is the Saviour, and utterly worn out 
with agony, that his lips have fallen apart from mere 
exhaustion; his eyes seem to be set; he tries to lean his 
head against the pillar, but is kept from sinking down 
upon the ground only by the cords that bind him. One 
of the most striking effects produced, is the sense of lone¬ 
liness. You behold Christ deserted both in heaven and 
earth ; that despair is in him which wrung forth the sad¬ 
dest utterance man ever made, “ Why hast Thou forsaken 
me ? ” Even in this extremity, however, he is still divine. 
The great and reverent painter has not suffered the Son 
of God to be merely an object of pity, though depicting 
him in a state so profoundly pitiful. He is rescued from 
it, we know not how, — by nothing less than miracle,— 
by a celestial majesty and beauty, and some quality of 
which these are the outward garniture. He is as much, 
and as visibly, our Redeemer, there bound, there fainting, 
and bleeding from the scourge, with the cross in view, 
as if he sat on his throne of glory in the heavens! 
Sodoma, in this matchless picture, has done more towards 
reconciling the incongruity of Divine Omnipotence and 
outraged, suffering Humanity, combined in one person, 
than the theologians ever did. 

This hallowed work of genius shows what pictorial 
art, devoutly exercised, might effect in behalf of reli¬ 
gious truth; involving, as it does, deeper mysteries of 
revelation, and bringing them closer to man’s heart, 
and making him tenderer to be impressed by them, than 
the most eloquent words of preacher or prophet. 

It is not of pictures like the above, that galleries, in 
Rome or elsewhere, are made up, but of productions 
immeasurably below them, and requiring to be appre¬ 
ciated by a very different frame of mind. Few ama¬ 
teurs are endowed with a tender susceptibility to the 
sentiment of a picture; they are not won from an evil 
life, nor anywise morally improved by it. The love of 
art, therefore, differs widely in its influence from the 
love of nature; whereas, if art had not strayed away 


102 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


from its legitimate paths and aims, it ought to soften 
and sweeten the lives of its worshippers, in even a more 
exquisite degree than the contemplation of natural ob¬ 
jects. But, of its own potency it has no such effect; 
and it fails, likewise, in that other test of its moral value 
which poor Hilda was now involuntarily trying upon it. 
It cannot comfort the heart in affliction; it grows dim 
when the shadow is upon us. 

So the melancholy girl wandered through those long 
galleries, and over the mosaic pavements of vast, solitary 
saloons, wondering what had become of the splendor 
that used to beam upon her from the walls. She grew 
sadly critical, and condemned almost everything that 
she was wont to admire. Heretofore, her sympathy 
went deeply into a picture, yet seemed to leave a depth 
which it was inadequate to sound ; now, on the contrary, 
her perceptive faculty penetrated the canvas like a steel 
probe, and found but a crust of paint over an emptiness. 
Not that she gave up all art as worthless ; only it had lost 
its consecration. One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, 
ought to live in the applause of mankind, from genera¬ 
tion to generation, until the colors fade and blacken out 
of sight, or the canvas rot entirely away. For the rest, 
let them be piled in garrets, just as the tolerable poets 
are shelved, when their little day is over. Is a painter 
more sacred than a poet ? 

And as for these galleries of Roman palaces, they 
were to Hilda — though she still trod them with the for¬ 
lorn hope of getting back her sympathies — they were 
drearier than the whitewashed walls of a prison corridor. 
If a magnificent palace were founded, as was generally 
the case, on hardened guilt and a stony conscience — 
if the prince or cardinal who stole the marble of his vast 
mansion from the Coliseum, or some Roman temple, had 
perpetrated still deadlier crimes, as probably he did — 
there could be no fitter punishment for his ghost than to 
wander perpetually through these long suites of rooms, 
over the cold marble or mosaic of the floors, growing 
chiller at every eternal footstep. Fancy the progenitor 
of the Dorias thus haunting those heavy halls where 


PICTURE-GALLERY EMPTINESS 103 


his posterity reside ! Nor would it assuage his monoto¬ 
nous misery, but increase it manifold, to be compelled 
to scrutinize those masterpieces of art, which he col¬ 
lected with so much cost and care, and gazing at them 
unintelligently, still leave a further portion of his vital 
warmth at every one. 

Such, or of a similar kind, is the torment of those who 
seek to enjoy pictures in an uncongenial mood. Every 
haunter of picture-galleries, we should imagine, must 
have experienced it, in greater or less degree; Hilda 
never till now, but now most bitterly. 

And now, for the first time in her lengthened absence, 
comprising so many years of her young life, she began 
to be acquainted with the exile’s pain. Her pictorial 
imagination brought up vivid scenes of her native vil¬ 
lage, with its great, old elm-trees ; and the neat, comfort¬ 
able houses, scattered along the wide, grassy margin of 
its street, and the white meeting-house, and her mother’s 
very door, and the stream of gold-brown water, which 
her taste for color had kept flowing, all this while, 
through her remembrance. Oh, dreary streets, palaces, 
churches, and imperial sepulchres of hot and dusty 
Rome, with the muddy Tiber eddying through the midst, 
instead of the gold-brown rivulet! How she pined 
under this crumbly magnificence, as if it were piled all 
upon her human heart! How she yearned for that 
native homeliness, those familiar sights, those faces 
which she had known always, those days that never 
brought any strange event; that life of sober week-days, 
and a solemn sabbath at the close! The peculiar fra¬ 
grance of a flower-bed, which Hilda used to cultivate, 
came freshly to her memory, across the windy sea, and 
through the long years since the flowers had withered. 
Her heart grew faint at the hundred reminiscences that 
were awakened by that remembered smell of dead blos¬ 
soms ; it was like opening a drawer, where many things 
were laid away, and every one of them scented with 
lavender and dried rose-leaves. 

We ought not to betray Hilda’s secret; but it is the 
truth, that being so sad, and so utterly alone, and in such 


io 4 THE MARBLE FAUN 

great need of sympathy, her thoughts sometimes re¬ 
curred to the sculptor. Had she met him now, her 
heart, indeed, might not have been won, but her confi¬ 
dence would have flown to him like a bird to its nest. 
One summer afternoon, especially, Hilda leaned upon 
the battlements of her tower, and looked over Rome 
towards the distant mountains, whither Kenyon had told 
her that he was going. 

“ Oh, that he were here,” she sighed; “ I perish under 
this terrible secret; and he might help me to endure it. 
Oh, that he were here ! ” 

That very afternoon, as the reader may remember, 
Kenyon felt Hilda’s hand pulling at the silken cord that 
was connected with his heartstrings, as he stood looking 
towards Rome from the battlements of Monte Beni. 


CHAPTER XIII 


ALTARS AND INCENSE 

R OME has a certain species of consolation readier at 
hand, for all the necessitous, than any other spot 
under the sky; and Hilda’s despondent state made her 
peculiarly liable to the peril, if peril it can justly be 
termed, of seeking, or consenting, to be thus consoled. 

Had the Jesuits known the situation of this troubled 
heart, her inheritance of New England Puritanism would 
hardly have protected the poor girl from the pious strat¬ 
egy of those good fathers. Knowing, as they do, how 
to work each proper engine, it would have been ulti¬ 
mately impossible for Hilda to resist the attractions of 
a faith, which so marvellously adapts itself to every 
human need. Not, indeed, that it can satisfy the soul’s 
cravings, but, at least, it can sometimes help the soul 
towards a higher satisfaction than the faith contains 
within itself. It supplies a multitude of external forms, 
in which the spiritual may be clothed and manifested; 
it has many painted windows, as it were, through which 
the celestial sunshine, else disregarded, may make itself 
gloriously perceptible in visions of beauty and splendor. 
There is no one want or weakness of human nature, 
for which Catholicism will own itself without a remedy; 
cordials, certainly, it possesses in abundance, and seda¬ 
tives in inexhaustible variety, and what may once have 
been genuine medicaments, though a little the worse for 
long keeping. 

To do it justice, Catholicism is such a miracle of fit¬ 
ness for its own ends, many of which might seem to be 
admirable ones, that it is difficult to imagine it a con¬ 
trivance of mere man. Its mighty machinery was 
forged and put together, not on middle earth, but either 

105 


o 6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


above or below. If there were but angels to work it, 
instead of the very different class of engineers who now 
manage its cranks and safety-valves, the system would 
soon vindicate the dignity and holiness of its origin. 

Hilda had heretofore made many pilgrimages among 
the churches of Rome, for the sake of wondering at 
their gorgeousness. Without a glimpse at these palaces 
of worship, it is impossible to imagine the magnificence 
of the religion that reared them. Many of them shine 
with burnished gold. They glow with pictures. Their 
walls, columns, and arches seem a quarry of precious 
stones, so beautiful and costly are the marbles with 
which they are inlaid. Their pavements are often a 
mosaic, of rare workmanship. Around their lofty cor¬ 
nices hover flights of sculptured angels; and within the 
vault of the ceiling and the swelling interior of the dome, 
there are frescoes of such brilliancy, and wrought with 
so artful a perspective, that the sky, peopled with 
sainted forms, appears to be opened, only a little way 
above the spectator. Then there are chapels, opening 
from the side-aisles and transepts, decorated by princes 
for their own burial-places, and as shrines for their 
especial saints. In these, the splendor of the entire 
edifice is intensified and gathered to a focus. Unless 
words were gems, that would flame with many-colored 
light upon the page, and throw thence a tremulous 
glimmer into the reader’s eyes, it were vain to attempt 
a description of a princely chapel. 

Restless with her trouble, Hilda now entered upon 
another pilgrimage among these altars and shrines. 
She climbed the hundred steps of the Ara Coeli; she 
trod the broad, silent nave of St. John Lateran ; she 
stood in the Pantheon, under the round opening in the 
dome, through which the blue, sunny, sky still gazes 
down, as it used to gaze when there were Roman deities 
in the antique niches. She went into every church that 
rose before her, but not now to wonder at its magnifi¬ 
cence, which she hardly noticed more than if it had 
been the pine-built interior of a New England meeting¬ 
house. 


ALTARS AND INCENSE 


107 

She went — and it was a dangerous errand — to 
observe how closely and comfortingly the Popish faith 
applied itself to all human occasions. It was impossible 
to doubt that multitudes of people found their spiritual 
advantage in it, who would find none at all in our own 
formless mode of worship; which, besides, so far as the 
sympathy of prayerful souls is concerned, can be enjoyed 
only at stated and too unfrequent periods. But here, 
whenever the hunger for divine nutriment came upon 
the soul, it could on the instant be appeased. At one 
or another altar, the incense was forever ascending; the 
mass always being performed, and carrying upward 
with it the devotion of such as had not words for their 
own prayer. And yet, if the worshipper had his in¬ 
dividual petition to offer, his own heart-secret to whisper 
below his breath, there were divine auditors ever ready 
to receive it from his lips; and what encouraged him 
still more, these auditors had not always been divine, 
but kept, within their heavenly memories, the tender 
humility of a human experience. Now a saint in heaven 
but once a man on earth. 

Hilda saw peasants, citizens, soldiers, nobles, women 
with bare heads, ladies in their silks, entering the 
churches individually, kneeling for moments, or for 
hours, and directing their inaudible devotions to the 
shrine of some saint of their own choice. In his hal¬ 
lowed person, they felt themselves possessed of an own 
friend in heaven. They were too humble to approach 
the Deity directly. Conscious of their unworthiness, 
they asked the mediation of their sympathizing patron, 
who, on the score of his ancient martyrdom, and after 
many ages of celestial life, might venture to talk with 
the Divine Presence, almost as friend with friend. 
Though dumb before its Judge, even despair could 
speak, and pour out the misery of its soul like water, 
to an advocate so wise to comprehend the case, and 
eloquent to plead it, and powerful to win pardon, what¬ 
ever were the guilt. Hilda witnessed what she deemed 
to be an example of this species of confidence between 
a young man and his saint. He stood before a shrine, 


io8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


writhing, wringing his hands, contorting his whole 
frame in an agony of remorseful recollection, but 
finally knelt down to weep and pray. If this youth 
had been a Protestant, he would have kept all that tor¬ 
ture pent up in his heart, and let it burn there till it 
seared him into indifference. 

Often, and long, Hilda lingered before the shrines 
and chapels of the Virgin, and departed from them 
with reluctant steps. Here, perhaps, strange as it may 
seem, her delicate appreciation of art stood her in good 
stead, and lost Catholicism a convert. If the painter 
had represented Mary with a heavenly face, poor Hilda 
was now in the very mood to worship her, and adopt the 
faith in which she held so elevated a position. But she 
saw that it was merely the flattered portrait of an earthly 
beauty; the wife, at best, of the artist; or, it might be, 
a peasant girl of the Campagna, or some Roman prin¬ 
cess, to whom he desired to pay his court. For love, or 
some even less justifiable motive, the old painter had 
apotheosized these women; he thus gained for them, as 
far as his skill would go, not only the meed of immor¬ 
tality, but the privilege of presiding over Christian altars, 
and of being worshipped with far holier fervors than 
while they dwelt on earth. Hilda’s fine sense of the fit 
and decorous could not be betrayed into kneeling at 
such a shrine. 

She never found just the virgin mother whom she 
needed. Here, it was an earthly mother worshipping 
the earthly baby in her lap, as any and every mother 
does, from Eve’s time downward. In another picture, 
there was a dim sense, shown in the mother’s face, of 
some divine quality in the child. In a third, the artist 
seemed to have had a higher perception, and had striven 
hard to shadow out the Virgin’s joy at bringing the 
Saviour into the world, and her awe and love, inextricably 
mingled, of the little form which she pressed against her 
bosom. So far was good. But still, Hilda looked for 
something more; a face of celestial beauty, but human 
as well as heavenly, and with the shadow of past grief 
upon it; bright with immortal youth, yet matronly and 



4 


THE CHURCH OF SAINT FETER. 





















ALTARS AND INCENSE 


109 

motherly; and endowed with a queenly dignity, but 
infinitely tender, as the highest and deepest attribute of 
her divinity. 

“Ah,” thought Hilda to herself, “why should not 
there be a woman to listen to the prayers of women ? a 
mother in heaven for all motherless girls like me ? In 
all God’s thought and care for us, can He have withheld 
this boon, which our weakness so much needs ? ” 

Oftener than to the other churches, she wandered into 
Saint Peter’s. Within its vast limits, she thought, and 
beneath the sweep of its great dome, there should be 
space for all forms of Christian truth ; room both for the 
faithful and the heretic to kneel; due help for every 
creature’s spiritual want. 

Hilda had not always been adequately impressed by 
the grandeur of this mighty cathedral. When she first 
lifted the heavy leathern curtain, at one of the doors, a 
shadowy edifice in her imagination had been dazzled out 
of sight by the reality. Her preconception of Saint 
Peter’s was a structure of no definite outline, misty in 
its architecture, dim and gray and huge, stretching into 
an interminable perspective, and overarched by a dome 
like the cloudy firmament. Beneath that vast breadth 
and height, as she had fancied them, the personal man 
might feel his littleness, and the soul triumph in its 
immensity. So, in her earlier visits, when the compassed 
splendor of the actual interior glowed before her eyes, „ 
she had profanely called it a great prettiness; a gay 
piece of cabinet-work, on a Titanic scale; a jewel casket, 
marvellously magnified. 

This latter image best pleased her fancy; a casket, all 
inlaid, in the inside, with precious stones of various hue, 
so that there should not be a hair’s-breadth of the small 
interior unadorned with its resplendent gem. Then, con¬ 
ceive this minute wonder of a mosaic box, increased to 
the magnitude of a cathedral, without losing the intense 
lustre of its littleness, but all its petty glory striving to 
be sublime. The magic transformation from the minute 
to the vast has not been so cunningly effected but that 
the rich adornment still counteracts the impression of 


I IO 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


space and loftiness. The spectator is more sensible of 
its limits than of its extent. 

Until after many visits, Hilda continued to mourn for 
that dim, illimitable interior, which with her eyes shut 
she had seen from childhood, but which vanished at her 
first glimpse through the actual door. Her childish 
vision seemed preferable to the cathedral, which Michael 
Angelo, and all the great architects, had built; because, 
of the dream edifice, she had said, “ How vast it is! ” 
while of the real Saint Peter’s she could only say, “After 
all, it is not so immense! ” Besides, such as the church 
is, it can nowhere be made visible at one glance. It 
stands in its own way. You see an aisle or a transept; 
you see the nave, or the tribune; but, on account of its 
ponderous piers and other obstructions, it is only by 
this fragmentary process that you get an idea of the 
cathedral. 

There is no answering such objections. The great 
church smiles calmly upon its critics, and, for all re¬ 
sponse, says, “ Look at me! ” and if you still murmur 
for the loss of your shadowy perspective, there comes 
no reply, save, “ Look at me! ” in endless repetition, as 
the one thing to be said. And, after looking many times, 
with long intervals between, you discover that the cathe¬ 
dral has gradually extended itself over the whole com¬ 
pass of your idea ; it covers all the site of your visionary 
temple, and has room for its cloudy pinnacles beneath 
the dome. 

One afternoon, as Hilda entered Saint Peter’s in som¬ 
bre mood, its interior beamed upon her with all the effect 
of a new creation. It seemed an embodiment of what¬ 
ever the imagination could conceive, or the heart desire, 
as a magnificent, comprehensive, majestic symbol of reli¬ 
gious faith. All splendor was included within its verge, 
and there was space for all. She gazed with delight even 
at the multiplicity of ornament. She was glad at the 
cherubim that fluttered upon the pilasters, and of the 
marble doves, hovering, unexpectedly, with green olive- 
branches of precious stones. She could spare nothing, 
now, of the manifold magnificence that had been lav- 


ALTARS AND INCENSE 


111 


ished, in a hundred places, richly enough to have made 
world-famous shrines in any other church, but which here 
melted away into the vast, sunny breadth, and were of 
no separate account. Yet each contributed its little all 
towards the grandeur of the whole. 

She would not have banished one of those grim popes, 
who sit each over his own tomb, scattering cold benedic¬ 
tions out of their marble hands; nor a single frozen sister 
of the Allegoric family, to whom — as, like hired mourn¬ 
ers at an English funeral, it costs them no wear and tear 
of heart — is assigned the office of weeping for the dead. 
If you choose to see these things, they present them¬ 
selves ; if you deem them unsuitable and out of place, 
they vanish, individually, but leave their life upon the 
walls. 

The pavement! it stretched out inimitably, a plain of 
many-colored marble, where thousands of worshippers 
might kneel together, and shadowless angels tread among 
them without brushing their heavenly garments against 
those earthly ones. The roof! the dome! Rich, gor¬ 
geous, filled with sunshine, cheerfully sublime, and fade¬ 
less after centuries, those lofty depths seemed to translate 
the heavens to mortal comprehension, and help the spirit 
upward to a yet higher and wider sphere. Must not the 
faith, that built this matchless edifice, and warmed, illu¬ 
minated, and overflowed from it, include whatever can 
satisfy human aspirations at the loftiest, or minister to 
human necessity at the sorest ? If Religion had a mate¬ 
rial home, was it not here ? 

As the scene which we but faintly suggest shone 
calmly before the New England maiden at her entrance, 
she moved, as if by very instinct, to one of the vases of 
holy water, upborne against a column by two mighty 
cherubs. Hilda dipped her fingers, and had almost signed 
the cross upon her breast, but forbore, and trembled, 
while shaking the water from her finger-tips. She felt 
as if her mother’s spirit, somewhere within the dome, 
were looking down upon her child, the daughter of Puri¬ 
tan forefathers, and weeping to behold her ensnared by 
these gaudy superstitions. So she strayed sadly onward, 


112 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


up the nave, and towards the hundred golden lights that 
swarm before the high altar. Seeing a woman, a priest, 
and a soldier kneel to kiss the toe of the brazen St. 
Peter, who protrudes it beyond his pedestal, for the pur¬ 
pose, polished bright with former salutations, while a 
child stood on tiptoe to do the same, the glory of the 
church was darkened before Hilda’s eyes. But again 
she went onward into remoter regions. She turned into 
the right transept, and thence found her way to a shrine, 
in the extreme corner of the edifice, which is adorned 
with a mosaic copy of Guido’s beautiful Archangel, 
treading on the prostrate fiend. 

This was one of the few pictures, which, in these 
dreary days, had not faded nor deteriorated in Hilda’s 
estimation; not that it was better than many in which 
she no longer took an interest; but the subtile delicacy 
of the painter’s genius was peculiarly adapted to her 
character. She felt, while gazing at it, that the artist 
had done a great thing, not merely for the Church of 
Rome, but for the cause of Good. The moral of the 
picture, the immortal youth and loveliness of Virtue, and 
its irresistible might against ugly Evil, appealed as much 
to Puritans as Catholics. 

Suddenly, and as if it were done in a dream, Hilda 
found herself kneeling before the shrine, under the ever¬ 
burning lamp that throws its ray upon the Archangel’s 
face. She laid her forehead on the marble steps before 
the altar, and sobbed out a prayer; she hardly knew to 
whom, whether Michael, the Virgin, or the Father; she 
hardly knew for what, save only a vague longing, that 
thus the burden of her spirit might be lightened a little. 

In an instant she snatched herself up, as it were, from 
her knees, all a-throb with the emotions which were strug¬ 
gling to force their way out of her heart by the avenue 
that had so nearly been opened for them. Yet there 
was a strange sense of relief won by that momentary, 
passionate prayer; a strange joy, moreover, whether 
from what she had done, or for what she had escaped 
doing, Hilda could not tell. But she felt as one half 
stifled, who has stolen a breath of air. 


ALTARS AND INCENSE 


11 3 

Next to the shrine where she had knelt, there is an¬ 
other, adorned with a picture by Guercino, representing 
a maiden’s body in the jaws of the sepulchre, and her 
lover weeping over it; while her beatified spirit looks 
down upon the scene, in the society of the Saviour and 
a throng of saints. Hilda wondered if it were not pos¬ 
sible, by some miracle of faith, so to rise above her pres¬ 
ent despondency that she might look down upon what 
she was, just as Petronilla in the picture looked at her 
own corpse. A hope, born of hysteric trouble, fluttered 
in her heart. A presentiment, or what she fancied such, 
whispered her, that, before she had finished the circuit 
of the cathedral, relief would come. 

The unhappy are continually tantalized by similar de¬ 
lusions of succor near at hand; at least, the despair is 
very dark that has no such will-o’-the-wisp to glimmer 
in it. 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE WORLD’S CATHEDRAL 

S TILL gliding onward, Hilda now looked up into the 
dome, where the sunshine came through the western 
windows, and threw across long shafts of light. They 
rested upon the mosaic figures of two evangelists above 
the cornice. These great beams of radiance, traversing 
what seemed the empty space, were made visible in misty 
glory, by the holy cloud of incense, else unseen, which 
had risen into the middle dome. It was to Hilda as if 
she beheld the worship of the priest and people ascend¬ 
ing heavenward, purified from its alloy of earth, and 
acquiring celestial substance in the golden atmosphere 
to which it aspired. She wondered if angels did not 
sometimes hover within the dome, and show themselves 
in brief glimpses, floating amid the sunshine and the 
glorified vapor, to those who devoutly worshipped on 
the pavement. 

She had now come into the southern transept. Around 
this portion of the church are ranged a number of con¬ 
fessionals. They are small tabernacles of carved wood, 
with a closet for the priest in the centre; and, on either 
side, a space for a penitent to kneel, and breathe his con¬ 
fession through a perforated auricle into the good father’s 
ear. Observing this arrangement, though already famil¬ 
iar to her, our poor Hilda was anew impressed with the 
infinite convenience — if we may use so poor a phrase 
— of the Catholic religion to its devout believers. 

Who, in truth, that considers the matter, can resist a 
similar impression ! In the hottest fever-fit of life, they 
can always find, ready for their need, a cool, quiet, beau¬ 
tiful place of worship. They may enter its sacred pre- 

114 


THE WORLD’S CATHEDRAL 115 

cincts at any hour, leaving the fret and trouble of the 
world behind them, and purifying themselves with a 
touch of holy water at the threshold. In the calm in¬ 
terior, fragrant of rich and soothing incense, they may 
hold converse with some saint, their awful, kindly friend. 
And most precious privilege of all, whatever perplexity, 
sorrow, guilt, may weigh upon their souls, they can fling 
down the dark burden at the foot of the cross, and go 
forth — to sin no more, nor be any longer disquieted ; 
but to live again in the freshness and elasticity of inno¬ 
cence. 

“ Do not these inestimable advantages,” thought Hilda, 
“ or some of them, at least, belong to Christianity itself? 
Are they not a part of the blessings which the system 
was meant to bestow upon mankind ? Can the faith in 
which I was born and bred be perfect, if it leave a weak 
girl like me to wander, desolate, with this great trouble 
crushing me down ? ” 

A poignant anguish thrilled within her breast; it was 
like a thing that had life, and was struggling to get out. 

“Oh, help! Oh, help!” cried Hilda; “I cannot, can¬ 
not bear it! ” 

Only by the reverberations that followed — arch echo¬ 
ing the sound to arch, and a pope of bronze repeating it 
to a pope of marble, as each sat enthroned over his tomb 
— did Hilda become aware that she had really spoken 
above her breath. But, in that great space, there is no 
need to hush up the heart within one’s own bosom, so 
carefully as elsewhere; and, if the cry reached any dis¬ 
tant auditor, it came broken into many fragments, and 
from various quarters of the church. 

Approaching one of the confessionals, she saw a 
woman kneeling within. Just as Hilda drew near, the 
penitent rose, came forth, and kissed the hand of the 
priest, who regarded her with a look of paternal be¬ 
nignity, and appeared to be giving her some spiritual 
counsel, in a low voice. She then knelt to receive his 
blessing, which was fervently bestowed. Hilda was so 
struck with the peace and joy in the woman’s face, that, 
as the latter retired, she could not help speaking to her. 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


n 6 

“You look very happy! ” said she. “ Is it so sweet, 
then, to go to the confessional ? ” 

“ Oh, very sweet, my dear signorina ! ” answered the 
woman, with moistened eyes and an affectionate smile; 
for she was so thoroughly softened with what she had 
been doing, that she felt as if Hilda were her younger 
sister. “ My heart is at rest now. Thanks be to the 
Saviour, and the blessed Virgin and the saints, and this 
good father, there is no more trouble for poor Teresa! ” 

“ I am glad for your sake,” said Hilda, sighing for her 
own. “ I am a poor heretic, but a human sister; and I 
rejoice for you ! ” 

She went from one to another of the confessionals, 
and, looking at each, perceived that they were inscribed 
with gilt letters: on one, Pro Italica Lingua ; on 
another, Pro Flandrica Lingua ; on a third, Pro 
Polonica Lingua ; on a fourth, Pro Illyrica Lin¬ 
gua ; on a fifth, Pro Hispanica Lingua. In this vast 
and hospitable cathedral, worthy to be the religious heart 
of the whole world, there was room for all nations; there 
was access to the Divine Grace for every Christian soul; 
there was an ear for what the overburdened heart might 
have to murmur, speak in what native tongue it would. 

When Hilda had almost completed the circuit of the 
transept, she came to a confessional — the central part 
was closed, but a mystic rod protruded from it indicat¬ 
ing the presence of a priest within — on which was 
inscribed, Pro Anglica Lingua. 

It was the word in season! If she had heard her 
mother’s voice from within the tabernacle, calling her, 
in her own mother-tongue, to come and lay her poor 
head in her lap, and sob out all her troubles, Hilda 
could not have responded with a more inevitable obedi¬ 
ence. She did not think; she only felt. Within her 
heart was a great need. Close at hand, within the veil 
of the confessional, was the relief. She flung herself 
down in the penitent’s place ; and, tremulously, passion¬ 
ately, with sobs, tears, and the turbulent overflow of 
emotion too long repressed, she poured out the dark 
story which had infused its poison into her innocent life. 


THE WORLD’S CATHEDRAL 117 

Hilda had not seen, nor could she now see, the visage 
of the priest. But, at intervals, in the pauses of that 
strange confession, half choked by the struggle of her 
feelings towards an outlet, she heard a mild, calm voice, 
somewhat mellowed by age. It spoke soothingly; it 
encouraged her; it led her on by apposite questions that 
seemed to be suggested by a great and tender interest, 
and acted like magnetism in attracting the girl’s confi¬ 
dence to this unseen friend. The priest’s share in the 
interview indeed resembled that of one who removes 
the stones, clustered branches, or whatever entangle¬ 
ments impede the current of a swollen stream. Hilda 
could have imagined — so much to the purpose were his 
inquiries — that he was already acquainted with some 
outline of what she strove to tell him. 

Thus assisted, she revealed the whole of her terrible 
secret! The whole, except that no name escaped her 
lips. 

And, ah, what a relief! When the hysteric gasp, the 
strife between words and sobs, had subsided, what a tor¬ 
ture had passed away from her soul! It was all gone; 
her bosom was as pure now as in her childhood. She 
was a girl again; she was Hilda of the dove-cote; not 
that doubtful creature whom her own doves had hardly 
recognized as their mistress and playmate, by reason of 
the death-scent that clung to her garments! 

After she had ceased to speak, Hilda heard the priest 
bestir himself with an old man’s reluctant movement. 
He stepped out of the confessional; and as the girl was 
still kneeling in the penitential corner, he summoned her 
forth. 

“ Stand up, my daughter,” said the mild voice of the 
confessor; “ what we have further to say must be 
spoken face to face.” 

Hilda did his bidding, and stood before him with a 
downcast visage, which flushed and grew pale again. 
But it had the wonderful beauty which we may often 
observe in those who have recently gone through a great 
struggle, and won the peace that lies just on the other 
side. We see it in a new mother’s face; we see it in 


118 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


the faces of the dead; and in Hilda’s countenance — 
which had always a rare natural charm for her friends 
— this glory of peace made her as lovely as an angel. 

On her part, Hilda beheld a venerable figure with hair 
as white as snow, and a face strikingly characterized by 
benevolence. It bore marks of thought, however, and 
penetrative insight; although the keen glances of the 
eyes were now somewhat bedimmed with tears, which 
the aged shed, or almost shed, on lighter stress of emo¬ 
tion than would elicit them from younger men. 

“ It has not escaped my observation, daughter,” said 
the priest, “ that this is your first acquaintance with the 
confessional. How is this? ” 

“ Father,” replied Hilda, raising her eyes, and again 
letting them fall, “ I am of New England birth, and was 
bred as what you call a heretic.” 

“ From New England ! ” exclaimed the priest. “ It 
was my own birthplace, likewise; nor have fifty years 
of absence made me cease to love it. But, a heretic! 
And are you reconciled to the Church ? ” 

“ Never, father,” said Hilda. 

“ And, that being the case,” demanded the old man, 
“on what ground, my daughter, have you sought to 
avail yourself of these blessed privileges, confined exclu¬ 
sively to members of the one true Church, of confession 
and absolution ? ” 

“ Absolution, father ? ” exclaimed Hilda, shrinking 
back. “ Oh, no, no ! I never dreamed of that! Only 
our Heavenly Father can forgive my sins; and it is only 
by sincere repentance of whatever wrong I may have 
done, and by my own best efforts towards a higher life, 
that I can hope for His forgiveness ! God forbid that I 
should ask absolution from mortal man ! ” 

“ Then, wherefore,” rejoined the priest, with somewhat 
less mildness in his tone, “wherefore, I ask again, have 
you taken possession, as I may term it, of this holy or¬ 
dinance ; being a heretic, and neither seeking to share, 
nor having faith in, the unspeakable advantages which 
the Church offers to its penitents ? ” 

“ Father,” answered Hilda, trying to tell the old man 


THE WORLD’S CATHEDRAL n 9 

the simple truth, “lama motherless girl, and a stranger 
here in Italy. I had only God to take care of me, and 
be my closest friend; and the terrible, terrible crime, 
which I have revealed to you, thrust itself between Him 
and me; so that I groped for Him in the darkness, as it 
were, and found Him not — found nothing but a dread¬ 
ful solitude, and this crime in the midst of it! I could 
not bear it. It seemed as if I made the awful guilt my 
own, by keeping it hidden in my heart. I grew a fear¬ 
ful thing to myself. I was going mad! ” 

“ It was a grievous trial, my poor child ! ” observed the 
confessor. “ Your relief, I trust, will prove to be greater 
than you yet know ! ” 

“ I feel already how immense it is! ” said Hilda, look¬ 
ing gratefully in his face. “ Surely, father, it was the 
hand of Providence that led me hither, and made me 
feel that this vast temple of Christianity, this great home 
of religion, must needs contain some cure, some ease, at 
least, for my unutterable anguish. And it has proved 
so. I have told the hideous secret; told it under the 
sacred seal of the confessional; and now it will burden 
my poor heart no more ! ” 

“ But, daughter,” answered the venerable priest, not 
unmoved by what Hilda said, “you forget! you mis¬ 
take ! — you claim a privilege to which you have not 
entitled yourself! The seal of the confessional, do you 
say ? God forbid that it should ever be broken, where 
it has been fairly impressed; but it applies only to mat¬ 
ters that have been confided to its keeping in a certain 
prescribed method, and by persons, moreover, who have 
faith in the sanctity of the ordinance. I hold myself, 
and any learned casuist of the Church would hold me, 
as free to disclose all the particulars of what you term 
your confession, as if they had come to my knowledge 
in a secular way.” 

“This is not right, father!” said Hilda, fixing her 
eyes on the old man’s. 

“ Do not you see, child,” he rejoined, with some little 
heat — “ with all your nicety of conscience, cannot you 
recognize it as my duty to make the story known to the 


120 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


proper authorities; a great crime against public justice 
being involved, and further evil consequences likely to 
ensue ? ” 

“No, father, no!” answered Hilda, courageously, her 
cheeks flushing and her eyes brightening as she spoke. 
“Trust a girl’s simple heart sooner than any casuist of 
your Church, however learned he may be. Trust your 
own heart, too ! I came to your confessional, father, as 
I devoutly believe, by the direct impulse of Heaven, 
which also brought you hither to-day, in its mercy and 
love, to relieve me of a torture that I could no longer 
bear. I trusted in the pledge which your Church has 
always held sacred between the priest and the human 
soul, which, through his medium, is struggling towards 
its Father above. What I have confided to you lies 
sacredly between God and yourself. Let it rest there, 
father; for this is right, and if you do otherwise, you 
will perpetrate a great wrong, both as a priest and a 
man! And, believe me, no question, no torture, shall 
ever force my lips to utter what would be necessary, in 
order to make my confession available towards the pun¬ 
ishment of the guilty ones. Leave Providence to deal 
with them! ” 

“ My quiet little countrywoman,” said the priest, with 
half a smile on his kindly old face, “ you can pluck up a 
spirit, I perceive, when you fancy an occasion for one.” 

“ I have spirit only to do what I think right,” replied 
Hilda, simply. “ In other respects, I am timorous.” 

“ But you confuse yourself between right feelings and 
very foolish inferences,” continued the priest, “ as is the 
wont of women — so much I have learnt by long experi¬ 
ence in the confessional —be they young or old. How¬ 
ever, to set your heart at rest, there is no probable need 
for me to reveal the matter. What you have told, if I 
mistake not, and perhaps more, is already known in the 
quarter which it most concerns.” 

“ Known! ” exclaimed Hilda. “ Known to the authori¬ 
ties of Rome! And what will be the consequence ? ” 

“ Hush,” answered the confessor, laying his finger on 
his lips. “ I tell you my supposition — mind, it is no 


THE WORLD’S CATHEDRAL 121 


assertion of the fact — in order that you may go the more 
cheerfully on your way, not deeming yourself burdened 
with any responsibility as concerns this dark deed. And 
now, daughter, what have you to give in return for an 
old man’s kindness and sympathy ? ” 

“My grateful remembrance,” said Hilda, fervently, 
“ as long as I live ! ” 

“ And nothing more ? ” the priest inquired, with a per¬ 
suasive smile. “ Will you not reward him with a great 
joy; one of the last joys that he may know on earth, 
and a fit one to take with him into the better world ? In 
a word, will you not allow him to bring you, as a stray 
lamb, into the true fold? You have experienced some 
little taste of the relief and comfort which the Church 
keeps abundantly in store for all its faithful children. 
Come home, dear child, — poor wanderer, who hast 
caught a glimpse of the heavenly light, — come home, 
and be at rest.” 

“ Father,” said Hilda, much moved by his kindly 
earnestness; in which, however, genuine as it was, 
there might still be a leaven of professional craft. “ I 
dare not come a step farther than Providence shall guide 
me. Do not let it grieve you, therefore, if I never return 
to the confessional; never dip my fingers in holy water; 
never sign my bosom with the cross. I am a daughter 
of the Puritans. But, in spite of my heresy,” she added, 
with a sweet, tearful smile, “ you may one day see the 
poor girl, to whom you have done this great Christian 
kindness, coming to remind you of it, and thank you for 
it, in the Better Land.” 

The old priest shook his head. But, as he stretched 
out his hands at the same moment, in the act of benedic¬ 
tion, Hilda knelt down and received the blessing with as 
devout a simplicity as any Catholic of them all. 


CHAPTER XV 

HILDA AND A FRIEND 

W HEN Hilda knelt to receive the priest’s benedic¬ 
tion, the act was witnessed by a person who stood 
leaning against the marble balustrade that surrounds the 
hundred golden lights, before the high altar. He had 
stood there, indeed, from the moment of the girl’s 
entrance into the confessional. His start of surprise, at 
first beholding her, and the anxious gloom that after¬ 
wards settled on his face, sufficiently betokened that he 
felt a deep and sad interest in what was going forward. 

After Hilda had bidden the priest farewell, she came 
slowly towards the high altar. The individual, to whom 
we have alluded, seemed irresolute whether to advance 
or retire. His hesitation lasted so long, that the maiden, 
straying through a happy reverie, had crossed the wide 
extent of the pavement between the confessional and the 
altar, before he had decided whether to meet her. At 
last, when within a pace or two, she raised her eyes and 
recognized Kenyon. 

“ It is you ! ” she exclaimed, with joyful surprise. “ I 
am so happy.” 

In truth, the sculptor had never before seen, nor 
hardly imagined, such a figure of peaceful beatitude as 
Hilda now presented. While coming towards him in 
the solemn radiance which, at that period of the day, is 
diffused through the transept, and showered down be¬ 
neath the dome, she seemed of the same substance as 
the atmosphere that enveloped her. He could scarcely 
tell whether she was imbued with sunshine, or whether 
it was a glow of happiness that shone out of her. 

At all events, it was a marvellous change from the sad 
122 



INTERIOR OF SAINT PETER’S. 





































































HILDA AND A FRIEND 


123 


girl, who had entered the confessional bewildered with 
anguish, to this bright, yet softened image of religious 
consolation that emerged from it. It was as if one of 
the throng of angelic people, who might be hovering in 
the sunny depths of the dome, had alighted on the pave¬ 
ment. Indeed, this capability of transfiguration, which 
we often see wrought by inward delight on persons far 
less capable of it than Hilda, suggests how angels come 
by their beauty. It grows out of their happiness, and 
lasts forever only because that is immortal. 

She held out her hand, and Kenyon was glad to take 
it in his own, if only to assure himself that she was made 
of earthly material. 

“Yes, Hilda, I see that you are very happy,” he re¬ 
plied, gloomily, and withdrawing his hand after a single 
pressure. “ For me, I never was less so than at this 
moment.” 

“ Has any misfortune befallen you ? ” asked Hilda, 
with earnestness. “ Pray tell me; and you shall have 
my sympathy, though I must still be very happy. Now, 
I know how it is, that the saints above are touched by 
the sorrows of distressed people on earth, and yet are 
never made wretched by them. Not that I profess to be 
a saint, you know,” she added, smiling radiantly. “ But 
the heart grows so large, and so rich, and so variously 
endowed, when it has a great sense of bliss, that it can 
give smiles to some, and tears to others, with equal sin¬ 
cerity, and enjoy its own peace throughout all.” 

“Do not say you are no saint!” answered Kenyon, 
with a smile, though he felt that the tears stood in his 
eyes. “You will still be St. Hilda, whatever Church 
may canonize you.” 

“ Ah! you would not have said so, had you seen me 
but an hour ago ! ” murmured she. “ I was so wretched, 
that there seemed a grievous sin in it.” 

“ And what has made you so suddenly happy ? ” in¬ 
quired the sculptor. “ But first, Hilda, will you not tell 
me why you were so wretched ? ” 

“ Had I met you yesterday, I might have told you 
that,” she replied. “ To-day, there is no need.” 


124 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“Your happiness, then?” said the sculptor, as sadly 
as before. “ Whence comes it ? ” 

“ A great burden has been lifted from my heart, — 
from my conscience, I had almost said,” answered Hilda, 
without shunning the glance that he fixed upon her. “ I 
am a new creature, since this morning, Heaven be 
praised for it! It was a blessed hour — a blessed im¬ 
pulse— that brought me to this beautiful and glorious 
cathedral. I shall hold it in loving remembrance while 
I live, as the spot where I found infinite peace after 
infinite trouble.” 

Her heart seemed so full, that it spilt its new gush of 
happiness, as it were, like rich and sunny wine out of 
an over-brimming goblet. Kenyon saw that she was in 
one of those moods of elevated feeling, when the soul is 
upheld by a strange tranquillity, which is really more pas¬ 
sionate, and less controllable, than emotions far exceed¬ 
ing it in violence. He felt that there would be indelicacy, 
if he ought not rather to call it impiety, in his stealing 
upon Hilda, while she was thus beyond her own guar¬ 
dianship, and surprising her out of secrets which she 
might afterwards bitterly regret betraying to him. 
Therefore, though yearning to know what had happened, 
he resolved to forbear further question. 

Simple and earnest people, however, being accustomed 
to speak from their genuine impulses, cannot easily, as 
craftier men do, avoid the subject which they have at 
heart. As often as the sculptor unclosed his lips, such 
words as these were ready to burst out: — 

“ Hilda, have you flung your angelic purity into that 
mass of unspeakable corruption, the Roman Church ? ” 
“ What were you saying ? ” she asked, as Kenyon 
forced back an almost uttered exclamation of this kind. 

“ I was thinking of what you have just remarked 
about the cathedral,” said he, looking up into the mighty 
hollow of the dome. “ It is indeed a magnificent struc¬ 
ture, and an adequate expression of the Faith which 
built it. When I behold it in a proper mood, — that is 
to say,, when I bring my mind into a fair relation with 
the minds and purposes of its spiritual and material 


HILDA AND A FRIEND 


125 

architects,—I see but one or two criticisms to make. 
One is, that it needs painted windows.” 

“Oh, no!” said Hilda. “They would be quite in¬ 
consistent with so much richness of color in the interior 
of the church. Besides, it is a Gothic ornament, and 
only suited to that style of architecture, which requires 
a gorgeous dimness.” 

“Nevertheless,” continued the sculptor, “yonder 
square apertures, filled with ordinary panes of glass, are 
quite out of keeping with the superabundant splendor of 
everything about them. They remind me of that portion 
of Aladdin’s palace which he left unfinished, in order 
that his royal father-in-law might put the finishing touch. 
Daylight, in its natural state, ought not to be admitted 
here. It should stream through a brilliant illusion of 
saints and hierarchies, and old scriptural images, and 
symbolized dogmas, purple, blue, golden, and a broad 
flame of scarlet. Then, it would be just such an illu¬ 
mination as the Catholic faith allows to its believers. 
But, give me — to live and die in — the pure, white 
light of heaven ! ” 

“ Why do you look so sorrowfully at me ? ” asked 
Hilda, quietly meeting his disturbed gaze. “What 
would you say to me ? I love the white light, too ! ” 

“I fancied so,” answered Kenyon. “Forgive me, 
Hilda; but I must needs speak. You seemed to me a 
rare mixture of impressibility, sympathy, sensitiveness 
to many influences, with a certain quality of common 
sense; — no, not that, but a higher and finer attribute, 
for which I find no better word. However tremulously 
you might vibrate, this quality, I supposed, would always 
bring you back to the equipoise. You were a creature 
of imagination, and yet as truly a New England girl as 
any with whom you grew up in your native village. If 
there were one person in the world, whose native recti¬ 
tude of thought, and something deeper, more reliable, 
than thought, I would have trusted against all the arts 
of a priesthood, — whose taste alone, so exquisite and 
sincere that it rose to be a moral virtue, I would have 
rested upon as a sufficient safeguard, — it was yourself ! ” 


126 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ I am conscious of no such high and delicate quali¬ 
ties as you allow me,” answered Hilda. “ But what 
have I done that a girl of New England birth and cul¬ 
ture, with the right sense that her mother taught her, 
and the conscience that she developed in her, should 
not do ? ” 

“ Hilda, I saw you at the confessional! ” said Kenyon. 

“ Ah, well, my dear friend,” replied Hilda, casting 
down her eyes, and looking somewhat confused, yet not 
ashamed, “you must try to forgive me for that, — if you 
deem it wrong, — because it has saved my reason, and 
made me very happy. Had you been here yesterday, 
I would have confessed to you.” 

“Would to Heaven I had! ” ejaculated Kenyon. 

“ I think,” Hilda resumed, “ I shall never go to the 
confessional again; for there can scarcely come such a 
sore trial twice in my life. If I had been a wiser girl, 
a stronger, and a more sensible, very likely, I might not 
have gone to the confessional at all. It was the sin of 
others that drove me thither; not my own, though it 
almost seemed so. Being what I am, I must either 
have done what you saw me doing or have gone mad. 
Would that have been better ? ” 

“ Then you are not a Catholic ? ” asked the sculptor, 
earnestly. 

“ Really, I do not quite know what I am,” replied 
Hilda, encountering his eyes with a frank and simple 
gaze. “ I have a great deal of faith, and Catholicism 
seems to have a great deal of good. Why should not 
I be a Catholic, if I find there what I need, and what 
I cannot find elsewhere ? The more I see of this wor¬ 
ship, the more I wonder at the exuberance with which 
it adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. 
If its ministers were but a little more than human, 
above all error, pure from all iniquity, what a religion 
would it be ! ” 

“ I need not fear your perversion to the Catholic 
faith,” remarked Kenyon, “if you are at all aware of 
the bitter sarcasm implied in your last observation. It 
is very just. Only, the exceeding ingenuity of the 


HILDA AND A FRIEND 


127 


system stamps it as the contrivance of man, or some 
worse author; not an emanation of the broad and 
simple wisdom from on high.” 

“It may be so,” said Hilda; “ but I meant no sarcasm.” 

Thus conversing, the two friends went together down 
the grand extent of the nave. Before leaving the 
church, they turned to admire again its mighty breadth, 
the remoteness of the glory behind the altar, and the 
effect of visionary splendor and magnificence imparted 
by the long bars of smoky sunshine, which travelled so 
far before arriving at a place of rest. 

“ Thank Heaven for having brought me hither! ” said 
Hilda, fervently. 

Kenyon’s mind was deeply disturbed by his idea of 
her Catholic propensities; and now what he deemed 
her disproportionate and misapplied veneration for the 
sublime edifice, stung him into irreverence. 

“ The best thing I know of Saint Peter’s,” observed he, 
“ is its equable temperature. We are now enjoying the 
coolness of last winter, which, a few months hence, will 
be the warmth of the present summer. It has no cure, 
I suspect, in all its length and breadth, for a sick soul, 
but it would make an admirable atmospheric hospital 
for sick bodies. What a delightful shelter would it be 
for the invalids who throng to Rome, where the sirocco 
steals away their strength, and the tramontana stabs 
them through and through, like cold steel with a poi¬ 
soned point! But, within these walls, the thermometer 
never varies. Winter and summer are married at the 
high altar, and dwell together in perfect harmony.” 

“ Yes,” said Hilda; “and I have always felt this soft, 
unchanging climate of Saint Peter’s to be another mani¬ 
festation of its sanctity.” 

“That is not precisely my idea,” replied Kenyon. 
“ But what a delicious life it would be, if a colony of 
people with delicate lungs — or merely with delicate 
fancies — could take up their abode in this ever-mild 
and tranquil air. These architectural tombs of the 
popes might serve for dwellings, and each brazen se¬ 
pulchral doorway would become a domestic threshold. 


128 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Then the lover, if he dared, might say to his mistress, 
‘ Will you share my tomb with me ? ’ and, winning her 
soft consent, he would lead her to the altar, and thence 
to yonder sepulchre of Pope Gregory, which should be 
their nuptial home. What a life would be theirs, Hilda, 
in their marble Eden ! ” 

“ It is not kind, nor like yourself,” said Hilda, gently, 
“ to throw ridicule on emotions which are genuine. I 
revere this glorious church for itself and its purposes; 
and love it, moreover, because here I have found sweet 
peace, after a great anguish.” 

“ Forgive me,” answered the sculptor, “ and I will do so 
no more. My heart is not so irreverent as my words.” 

They went through the piazza of Saint Peter’s and 
the adjacent streets, silently, at first; but, before reach¬ 
ing the bridge of St. Angelo, Hilda’s flow of spirits 
began to bubble forth, like the gush of a streamlet that 
has been shut up by frost, or by a heavy stone over its 
source. Kenyon had never found her so delightful as 
now; so softened out of the chillness of her virgin 
pride; so full of fresh thoughts, at which he was often 
moved to smile, although, on turning them over a little 
more, he sometimes discovered that they looked fanciful 
only because so absolutely true. 

But, indeed, she was not quite in a normal state. 
Emerging from gloom into sudden cheerfulness, the 
effect upon Hilda was as if she were just now created. 
After long torpor, receiving back her intellectual activ¬ 
ity, she derived an exquisite pleasure from the use of 
her faculties, which were set in motion by causes that 
seemed inadequate. She continually brought to Ken¬ 
yon’s mind the image of a child, making its plaything 
of every object, but sporting in good faith, and with a 
kind of seriousness. Looking up, for example, at the 
statue of St. Michael, on the top of Hadrian’s castel¬ 
lated tomb, Hilda fancied an interview between the 
Archangel and the old emperor’s ghost, who was natu¬ 
rally displeased at finding his mausoleum, which he had 
ordained for the stately and solemn repose of his ashes, 
converted to its present purposes. 


HILDA AND A FRIEND 


129 


‘‘But St. Michael, no doubt,” she thoughtfully re¬ 
marked, “ would finally convince the Emperor Hadrian, 
that where a warlike despot is sown as the seed, a for¬ 
tress and a prison are the only possible crop.” 

They stopped on the bridge to look into the swift eddy¬ 
ing flow of the yellow Tiber, a mud-puddle in strenuous 
motion; and Hilda wondered whether the seven-branched 
golden candlestick, the holy candlestick of the Jews — 
which was lost at the Ponte Molle, in Constantine’s 
time — had yet been swept as far down the river as 
this. 

“ It probably stuck where it fell,” said the sculptor; 
“ and, by this time, is imbedded thirty feet deep in the 
mud of the Tiber. Nothing will ever bring it to light 
again.” 

“ I fancy you are mistaken,” replied Hilda, smiling. 
“ There was a meaning and purpose in each of its seven 
branches, and such a candlestick cannot be lost forever. 
When it is found again, and seven lights are kindled and 
burning in it, the whole world will gain the illumination 
which it needs. Would not this be an admirable idea 
for a mystic story or parable, or seven-branched alle¬ 
gory, full of poetry, art, philosophy, and religion ? It 
shall be called ‘ The Recovery of the Sacred Candle¬ 
stick.’ As each branch is lighted, it shall have a differ¬ 
ently colored lustre from the other six; and when all 
the seven are kindled, their radiance shall combine into 
the intense white light of truth.” 

“ Positively, Hilda, this is a magnificent conception,” 
cried Kenyon. “ The more I look at it, the brighter it 
burns.” 

“I think so, too,” said Hilda, enjoying a childlike pleas¬ 
ure in her own idea. “ The theme is better suited for 
verse than prose; and when I go home to America, I 
will suggest it to one of our poets. Or, seven poets might 
write the poem together, each lighting a separate branch 
of the Sacred Candlestick.” 

“ Then you think of going home ? ” Kenyon asked. 

“ Only yesterday,” she replied, “ I longed to flee away. 
Now, all is changed, and, being happy again, I should feel 


130 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


deep regret at leaving the Pictorial Land. But, I cannot 
tell. In Rome, there is something dreary and awful, 
which we can never quite escape. At least, I thought 
so yesterday.” 

When they reached the Via Portoghese, and ap¬ 
proached Hilda’s tower, the doves, who were waiting 
aloft, flung themselves upon the air, and came floating 
down about her head. The girl caressed them, and re¬ 
sponded to their cooings with similar sounds from her 
own lips, and with words of endearment; and their 
joyful flutterings and airy little flights, evidently im¬ 
pelled by pure exuberance of spirits, seemed to show 
that the doves had a real sympathy with their mistress’s 
state of mind. For peace had descended upon her like 
a dove. 

Bidding the sculptor farewell, Hilda climbed her tower, 
and came forth upon its summit to trim the Virgin’s 
lamp. The doves, well knowing her custom, had flown 
up thither to meet her, and again hovered about her 
head; and very lovely was her aspect, in the evening 
sunlight, which had little further to do with the world, 
just then, save to fling a golden glory on Hilda’s hair, 
and vanish. 

Turning her eyes down into the dusky street which 
she had just quitted, Hilda saw the sculptor still there, 
and waved her hand to him. 

“ How sad and dim he looks, down there in that dreary 
street! ” she said to herself. “ Something weighs upon 
his spirits. Would I could comfort him.” 

“ How like a spirit she looks, aloft there, with the 
evening glory round her head, and those winged crea¬ 
tures claiming her as akin to them ! ” thought Kenyon, 
on his part. “ How far above me! how unattainable! 
Ah, if I could lift myself to her region ! Or — if it be 
not a sin to wish it—would that I might draw her down 
to an earthly fireside ! ” 

What a sweet reverence is that, when a young man 
deems his mistress a little more than mortal, and almost 
chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart! 
A trifling circumstance, but such as lovers make much 


HILDA AND A FRIEND 131 

of, gave him hope. One of the doves, which had been 
resting on Hilda’s shoulder, suddenly flew downward, as 
if recognizing him as its mistress’s dear friend; and per¬ 
haps commissioned with an errand of regard, brushed 
his upturned face with its wings, and again soared aloft. 

The sculptor watched the bird’s return, and saw Hilda 
greet it with a smile. 


CHAPTER XVI 


SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS 

TT being still considerably earlier than the period at 
which artists and tourists are accustomed to assemble 
in Rome, the sculptor and Hilda found themselves com¬ 
paratively alone there. The dense mass of native 
Roman life, in the midst of which they were, served to 
press them nearer to one another. It was as if they had 
been thrown together on a desert island. Or, they 
seemed to have wandered, by some strange chance, out 
of the common world, and encountered each other in a 
depopulated city, where there were streets of lonely 
palaces, and unreckonable treasures of beautiful and 
admirable things, of which they two became the sole 
inheritors. 

In such circumstances, Hilda’s gentle reserve must 
have been stronger than her kindly disposition permitted, 
if the friendship between Kenyon and herself had not 
grown as warm as a maiden’s friendship can ever be, 
without absolutely and avowedly blooming into love. 
On the sculptor’s side, the amaranthine flower was al¬ 
ready in full blow. But it is very beautiful, though the 
lover’s heart may grow chill at the perception, to see 
how the snow will sometimes linger in a virgin’s breast, 
even after the spring is well advanced. In such alpine 
soils, the summer will not be anticipated ; we seek vainly 
for passionate flowers, and blossoms of fervid hue and 
spicy fragrance, finding only snowdrops and sunless 
violets, when it is almost the full season for the crimson 
rose. 

With so much tenderness as Hilda had in her nature, 
it was strange that she so reluctantly admitted the idea 
of love; especially as, in the sculptor, she found both 

132 


MAIDENLY DELIGHTS 


*33 


congeniality and variety of taste, and likenesses and 
differences of character; these being as essential as 
those to any poignancy of mutual emotion. 

So Hilda, as far as Kenyon could discern, still did not 
love him, though she admitted him within the quiet cir¬ 
cle of her affections as a dear friend and trusty coun¬ 
sellor. If we knew what is best for us, or could be 
content with what is reasonably good, the sculptor might 
well have been satisfied, for a season, with this calm 
intimacy, which so sweetly kept him a stranger in her 
heart, and a ceremonious guest; and yet allowed him 
the free enjoyment of all but its deeper recesses. The 
flowers that grow outside of those inner sanctities have 
a wild, hasty charm, which it is well to prove; there 
may be sweeter ones within the sacred precinct, but none 
that will die while you are handling them, and bequeathe 
you a delicious legacy, as these do, in the perception of 
their evanescence and unreality. 

And this may be the reason, after all, why Hilda, like 
so many other maidens, lingered on the hither side of 
passion; her finer instinct and keener sensibility made 
her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of which men 
are incapable. She hesitated to grasp a richer happi¬ 
ness, as possessing already such measure of it as her 
heart could hold, and of a quality most agreeable to her 
virgin tastes. 

Certainly, they both were very happy. Kenyon’s 
genius, unconsciously wrought upon by Hilda’s influence, 
took a more delicate character than heretofore. He 
modelled, among other things, a beautiful little statue of 
maidenhood gathering a snowdrop. It was never put 
into marble, however, because the sculptor soon recog¬ 
nized it as one of those fragile creations which are true 
only to the moment that produces them, and are wronged 
if we try to imprison their airy excellence in a permanent 
material. 

On her part, Hilda returned to her customary occupa¬ 
tions with a fresh love for them, and yet with a deeper 
look into the heart of things; such as those necessarily 
acquire, who have passed from picture-galleries into 


134 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


dungeon gloom, and thence come back to the picture- 
gallery again. It is questionable whether she was ever 
so perfect a copyist thenceforth. She could not yield 
herself up to the painter so unreservedly as in times 
past; her character had developed a sturdier quality, 
which made her less pliable to the influence of other 
minds. She saw into the picture as profoundly as ever, 
and perhaps more so, but not with the devout sympathy 
that had formerly given her entire possession of the old 
master’s idea. She had known such a reality, that it 
taught her to distinguish inevitably the large portion 
that is unreal, in every work of art. Instructed by sor¬ 
row, she felt that there is something beyond almost all 
which pictorial genius has produced; and she never 
forgot those sad wanderings from gallery to gallery, and 
from church to church, where she had vainly sought a 
type of the virgin mother, or the Saviour, or saint, or 
martyr, which a soul in extreme need might recognize 
as the adequate one. 

How, indeed, should she have found such ? How could 
holiness be revealed to the artist of an age when the 
greatest of them put genius and imagination in the place 
of spiritual insight, and when, from the pope downward, 
all Christendom was corrupt ? 

Meanwhile, months wore away, and Rome received 
back that large portion of its lifeblood which runs in the 
veins of its foreign and temporary population. English 
visitors established themselves in the hotels, and in all 
the sunny suites of apartments, in the streets convenient 
to the Piazza di Spagna; the English tongue was heard 
familiarly along the Corso, and English children sported 
in the Pincian Gardens. 

The native Romans, on the other hand, like the butter¬ 
flies and grasshoppers, resigned themselves to the short, 
sharp misery which winter brings to a people whose 
arrangements are made almost exclusively with a view 
to summer. Keeping no fire within-doors, except possi¬ 
bly a spark or two in the kitchen, they crept out of their 
cheerless houses into the narrow, sunless, sepulchral 
streets, bringing their firesides along with them, in the 


MAIDENLY DELIGHTS 


J 35 


shape of little earthen pots, vases, or pipkins, full of 
lighted charcoal and warm ashes, over which they held 
their tingling finger-ends. Even in this half-torpid 
wretchedness, they still seemed to dread a pestilence in 
the sunshine, and kept on the shady side of the piazzas, 
as scrupulously as in summer. Through the open door¬ 
ways— no need to shut them when the weather within 
was bleaker than without — a glimpse into the interior 
of their dwellings showed the uncarpeted brick-floors, as 
dismal as the pavement of a tomb. 

1 hey drew their old cloaks about them, nevertheless, 
and threw the corners over their shoulders, with the 
dignity of attitude and action that have come down to 
these modern citizens, as their sole inheritance from the 
togaed nation. Somehow or other, they managed to keep 
up their poor, frost-bitten hearts against the pitiless atmos¬ 
phere with a quiet and uncomplaining endurance that 
really seems the most respectable point in the present 
Roman character. For, in New England, or in Russia, 
or scarcely in a hut of the Esquimaux, there is no such 
discomfort to be borne as by Romans in wintry weather, 
when the orange-trees bear icy fruit in the gardens; and 
when the rims of all the fountains are shaggy with icicles, 
and the Fountain of Trevi skimmed almost across with a 
glassy surface; and when there is a slide in the piazza 
of Saint Peter’s, and a fringe of brown, frozen foam along 
the eastern shore of the Tiber, and sometimes a fall of 
great snow-flakes into the dreary lanes and alleys of the 
miserable city. Cold blasts, that bring death with them, 
now blow upon the shivering invalids, who came hither 
in the hope of breathing balmy airs. 

Wherever we pass our summers, may all our inclement 
months, from November to April, henceforth be spent 
in some country that recognizes winter as an integral 
portion of its year! 

Now, too, there was especial discomfort in the stately 
picture-galleries, where nobody, indeed,—not the princely 
or priestly founders, nor any who have inherited their 
cheerless magnificence, — ever dreamed of such an im¬ 
possibility as fireside warmth, since those great palaces 


136 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


were built. Hilda, therefore, finding her fingers so much 
benumbed that the spiritual influence could not be trans¬ 
mitted to them, was persuaded to leave her easel before 
a picture, on one of these wintry days, and pay a visit to 
Kenyon’s studio. But neither was the studio anything 
better than a dismal den, with its marble shapes shiver¬ 
ing around the walls, cold as the snow-images which the 
sculptor used to model, in his boyhood, and sadly behold 
them weep themselves away at the first thaw. 

Kenyon’s Roman artisans, all this while, had been at 
work on the Cleopatra. The fierce Egyptian queen had 
now struggled almost out of the imprisoning stone; or, 
rather, the workmen had found her within the mass of 
marble, imprisoned there by magic, but still fervid to 
the touch with fiery life, the fossil woman of an age that 
produced statelier, stronger, and more passionate crea¬ 
tures than our own. You already felt her compressed 
heat, and were aware of a tiger-like character even in her 
repose. If Octavius should make his appearance, though 
the marble still held her within its embrace, it was evident 
that she would tear herself forth in a twinkling, either to 
spring enraged at his throat, or, sinking into his arms, to 
make one more proof of her rich blandishments, or fall¬ 
ing lowly at his feet, to try the efficacy of a woman’s 
tears. 

“ I am ashamed to tell you how much I admire this 
statue,” said Hilda. “ No other sculptor could have done 
it.” 

“ This is very sweet for me to hear,” replied Kenyon ; 
“ and since your reserve keeps you from saying more, I 
shall imagine you expressing everything that an artist 
would wish to hear said about his work.” 

“You will not easily go beyond my genuine opinion,” 
answered Hilda, with a smile. 

“ Ah, your kind word makes me very happy,” said the 
sculptor, “ and I need it, just now, on behalf of my Cleo¬ 
patra. The inevitable period has come — for I have 
found it inevitable, in regard to all my works — when I 
look at what I fancied to be a statue, lacking only breath 
to make it live, and find it a mere lump of senseless stone 


MAIDENLY DELIGHTS 


l 31 


into which I have not really succeeded in moulding the 
spiritual part of my idea. I should like, now —only it 
would be such shameful treatment for a discrowned 
queen, and my own offspring, too — I should like to hit 
poor Cleopatra a bitter blow on her Egyptian nose with 
this mallet.” 

“ That is a blow which all statues seem doomed to 
receive, sooner or later, though seldom from the hand 
that sculptured them,” said Hilda, laughing. “ But you 
must not let yourself be too much disheartened by the 
decay of your faith in what you produce. I have heard 
a poet express similar distaste for his own most exquisite 
poems, and I am afraid that this final despair, and sense 
of shortcoming, must always be the reward and punish¬ 
ment of those who try to grapple with a great or beautiful 
idea. It only proves that you have been able to imagine 
things too high for mortal faculties to execute. The idea 
leaves you an imperfect image of itself, which you at first 
mistake for the ethereal reality, but soon find that the 
latter has escaped out of your closest embrace.” 

“ And the only consolation is,” remarked Kenyon, 
“ that the .blurred and imperfect image may still make 
a very respectable appearance in the eyes of those who 
have not seen the original.” 

“More than that,” rejoined Hilda; “for there is a 
class of spectators whose sympathy will help them to 
see the perfect through a mist of imperfection. Nobody, 
I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or 
statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than 
the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest 
merit is suggestiveness.” 

“You, Hilda, are yourself the only critic in whom I 
have much faith,” said Kenyon. “ Had you condemned 
Cleopatra, nothing should have saved her.” 

“ You invest me with such an awful responsibility,” 
she replied, “ that I shall not dare to say a single word 
about your other works.” 

“ At least,” said the sculptor, “ tell me whether you 
recognize this bust.” 

He pointed to a bust of Donatello. It was not the 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


138 

one which Kenyon had begun to model at Monte Beni, 
but a reminiscence of the count’s face, wrought under 
the influence of all the sculptor’s knowledge of his his¬ 
tory, and of his personal and hereditary character. It 
stood on a wooden pedestal, not nearly finished, but with 
fine, white dust and small chips of marble scattered about 
it, and itself incrusted all round with the white, shapeless 
substance of the block. In the midst appeared the fea¬ 
tures, lacking sharpness, and very much resembling a 
fossil countenance — but we have already used this 
simile, in reference to Cleopatra—with the accumulation 
of long-past ages clinging to it. 

And yet, strange to say, the face had an expression, 
and a more recognizable one than Kenyon had succeeded 
in putting into the clay model at Monte Beni. The 
reader is probably acquainted with Thorwaldsen’s three¬ 
fold analogy, — the clay model, the Life ; the plaster 
cast, the Death; and the sculptured marble, the Resur¬ 
rection, —- and it seemed to be made good by the spirit 
that was kindling up these imperfect features, like a 
lambent flame. 

“ I was not quite sure, at first glance, that I knew the 
face,” observed Hilda; “ the likeness surely is not a 
striking one. There is a good deal of external resem¬ 
blance still, to the features of the Faun of Praxiteles, 
between whom and Donatello, you know, we once insisted 
that there was a perfect twin-brotherhood. But the 
expression is now so very different! ” 

“ What do you take it to be ? ” asked the sculptor. 

“ I hardly know how to define it,” she answered. 
“ But it has an effect as if I could see this countenance 
gradually brightening while I look at it. It gives the 
impression of a growing intellectual power and moral 
sense. Donatello’s face used to evince little more than 
a genial, pleasurable sort of vivacity, and capability of 
enjoyment. But, here, a soul is being breathed into 
him ; it is the Faun, but advancing towards a state of 
higher development.” 

“ Hilda, do you see all this ? ” exclaimed Kenyon, in 
considerable surprise. “ I may have had such an idea 


MAIDENLY DELIGHTS 


*39 

in my mind, but was quite unaware that I had succeeded 
in conveying it into the marble.” 

“ Forgive me,” said Hilda, “but I question whether 
this striking effect has been brought about by any skill 
or purpose on the sculptor’s part. Is it not, perhaps, 
the chance result of the bust being just so far shaped 
out, in the marble, as the process of moral growth had 
advanced in the original ? A few more strokes of the 
chisel might change the whole expression, and so spoil 
it for what it is now worth.” 

“ I believe you are right,” answered Kenyon, thought¬ 
fully examining his work; “ and, strangely enough, it 
was the very expression that I tried unsuccessfully to 
produce in the clay model. Well; not another chip 
shall be struck from the marble.” 

And, accordingly, Donatello’s bust (like that rude, 
rough mass of the head of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, 
at Florence) has ever since remained in an unfinished 
state. Most spectators mistake it for an unsuccessful 
attempt towards copying the features of the Faun of 
Praxiteles. One observer in a thousand is conscious of 
something more, and lingers long over this mysterious 
face, departing from it reluctantly, and with many a 
glance thrown backward. What perplexes him is the 
riddle that he sees propounded there; the riddle of the 
soul’s growth, taking its first impulse amid remorse and 
pain, and struggling through the incrustations of the 
senses. It was the contemplation of this imperfect por¬ 
trait of Donatello that originally interested us in his his¬ 
tory, and impelled us to elicit from Kenyon what he 
knew of his friend’s adventures. 


CHAPTER XVII 


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM 


HEN Hilda and himself turned away from the 



vv unfinished bust, the sculptor’s mind still dwelt 
upon the reminiscences which it suggested. 

“ You have not seen Donatello recently,” he remarked, 
“and therefore cannot be aware how sadly he is 
changed.” 

“ No wonder ! ” exclaimed Hilda, growing pale. 

The terrible scene which she had witnessed, when 
Donatello’s face gleamed out in so fierce a light, came 
back upon her memory, almost for the first time since 
she knelt at the confessional. Hilda, as is sometimes 
the case with persons whose delicate organization re¬ 
quires a peculiar safeguard, had an elastic faculty of 
throwing off such recollections as would be too painful 
for endurance. The first shock of Donatello’s and Mir¬ 
iam’s crime had, indeed, broken through the frail defence 
of this voluntary forgetfulness ; but, once enabled to 
relieve herself of the ponderous anguish over which she 
had so long brooded, she had practised a subtile watch¬ 
fulness in preventing its return. 

“No wonder, do you say?” repeated the sculptor, 
looking at her with interest, but not exactly with sur¬ 
prise ; for he had long suspected that Hilda had a pain¬ 
ful knowledge of events which he himself little more 
than surmised. “ Then you know ! — you have heard ! 
But what can you possibly have heard, and through 
what channel ? ” 

“ Nothing ! ” replied Hilda, faintly. “ Not one word 
has reached my ears from the lips of any human being. 
Let us never speak of it again ! No, no ! never again ! ” 

“ And Miriam ! ” said Kenyon, with irrepressible inter¬ 
est. “ Is it also forbidden to speak of her ? ” 


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM 141 


“ Hush! do not even utter her name! Try not to 
think of it! ” Hilda whispered. “ It may bring terrible 
consequences ! ” 

“ My dear Hilda ! ” exclaimed Kenyon, regarding her 
with wonder and deep sympathy. “ My sweet friend, 
have you had this secret hidden in your delicate, maid¬ 
enly heart, through all these many months! No won¬ 
der that your life was withering out of you.” 

“ It was so, indeed ! ” said Hilda, shuddering. “ Even 
now, I sicken at the recollection.” 

“ And how could it have come to your knowledge ? ” 
continued the sculptor. “ But, no matter! Do not tor¬ 
ture yourself with referring to the subject. Only, if at 
any time it should be a relief to you, remember that we 
can speak freely together, for Miriam has herself sug¬ 
gested a confidence between us.” 

“ Miriam has suggested this! ” exclaimed Hilda. 
“Yes, I remember, now, her advising that the secret 
should be shared with you. But I have survived the 
death-struggle that it cost me, and need make no further 
revelations. And Miriam has spoken to you! What 
manner of woman can she be, who, after sharing in 
such a deed, can make it a topic of conversation with 
her friends ? ” 

“ Ah, Hilda,” replied Kenyon, “ you do not know, for 
you could never learn it from your own heart, which is 
all purity and rectitude, what a mixture of good there 
may be in things evil; and how the greatest criminal, if 
you look at his conduct from his own point of view, or 
from any side-point, may seem not so unquestionably 
guilty, after all. So with Miriam; so with Donatello. 
They are, perhaps, partners in what we must call awful 
guilt; and yet, I will own to you, — when I think of the 
original cause, the motives, the feelings, the sudden con¬ 
currence of circumstances thrusting them onward, the 
urgency of the moment, and the sublime unselfishness 
on either part, — I know not well how to distinguish it 
from much that the world calls heroism. Might we not 
render some such verdict as this ? — ‘ Worthy of Death, 
but not unworthy of Love! ’ ” 


I 4 2 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Never! ” answered Hilda, looking at the matter 
through the clear crystal medium of her own integrity. 
“This thing, as regards its causes, is all a mystery to 
me, and must remain so. But there is, I believe, only 
one right and one wrong; and I do not understand, and 
may God keep me from ever understanding, how two 
things so totally unlike can be mistaken for one an¬ 
other; nor how two mortal foes, as Right and Wrong 
surely are, can work together in the same deed. This 
is my faith; and I should be led astray, if you could 
persuade me to give it up.” 

“Alas for poor human nature, then!” said Kenyon, 
sadly, and yet half smiling at Hilda’s unworldly and 
impracticable theory. “ I always felt you, my dear 
friend, a terribly severe judge, and have been perplexed 
to conceive how such tender sympathy could coexist 
with the remorselessness of a steel blade. You need 
no mercy, and therefore know not how to show any.” 

“That sounds like a bitter gibe,” said Hilda, with the 
tears springing into her eyes. “ But I cannot help it. 
It does not alter my perception of the truth. If there 
be any such dreadful mixture of good and evil as you 
affirm, and which appears to me almost more shock¬ 
ing than pure evil, — then the good is turned to poison, 
not the evil to wholesomeness.” 

The sculptor seemed disposed to say something more, 
but yielded to the gentle steadfastness with which Hilda 
declined to listen. She grew very sad; for a reference 
to this one dismal topic had set, as it were, a prison-door 
ajar, and allowed a throng of torturing recollections to 
escape from their dungeons into the pure air and white 
radiance of her soul. She bade Kenyon a briefer fare¬ 
well than ordinary, and went homeward to her tower. 

In spite of her efforts to withdraw them to other sub¬ 
jects, her thoughts dwelt upon Miriam; and, as had not 
heretofore happened, they brought with them a painful 
doubt whether a wrong had not been committed, on 
Hilda’s part, towards the friend once so beloved. Some¬ 
thing that Miriam had said, in their final conversation, 
recurred to her memory, and seemed now to deserve 


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM 143 


more weight than Hilda had assigned to it, in her hor¬ 
ror at the crime just perpetrated. It was not that the 
deed looked less wicked and terrible in the retrospect; 
but she asked herself whether there were not other 
questions to be considered, aside from that single one of 
Miriam’s guilt or innocence; as, for example, whether 
a close bond of friendship, in which we once voluntarily 
engage, ought to be severed on account of any un¬ 
worthiness, which we subsequently detect in our friend. 
For, in these unions of hearts, — call them marriage, or 
whatever else, — we take each other for better, for worse. 
Availing ourselves of our friend’s intimate affection, we 
pledge our own, as to be relied upon in every emergency. 
And what sadder, more desperate emergency could there 
be, than had befallen Miriam ? Who more need the ten¬ 
der succor of the innocent, than wretches stained with 
guilt ? And must a selfish care for the spotlessness of 
our own garments keep us from pressing the guilty ones 
close to our hearts, wherein, for the very reason that 
we are innocent, lies their securest refuge from further 
ill? 

It was a sad thing for Hilda to find this moral enigma 
propounded to her conscience; and to feel that, which¬ 
ever way she might settle it, there would be a cry of 
wrong on the other side. Still the idea stubbornly came 
back, that the tie between Miriam and herself had been 
real, the affection true, and that therefore the implied 
compact was not to be shaken off. 

“ Miriam loved me well,” thought Hilda, remorsefully, 
“ and I failed her at her sorest need.” 

Miriam loved her well; and not less ardent had 
been the affection which Miriam’s warm, tender, and 
generous characteristics had excited in Hilda’s more 
reserved and quiet nature. It had never been extin¬ 
guished; for, in part, the wretchedness which Hilda 
had since endured was but the struggle and writhing 
of her sensibility, still yearning towards her friend. 
And now, at the earliest encouragement, it awoke 
again, and cried out piteously, complaining of the 
violence that had been done it. 


I 44 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


Recurring to the delinquencies of which she fancied 
(we say “fancied,” because we do not unhesitatingly 
adopt Hilda’s present view, but rather suppose her mis¬ 
led by her feelings) — of which she fancied herself guilty 
towards her friend, she suddenly remembered a sealed 
packet that Miriam had confided to her. It had been 
put into her hands with earnest injunctions of secrecy 
and care, and if unclaimed after a certain period, was 
to be delivered according to its address. Hilda had for¬ 
gotten it; or, rather, she had kept the thought of this 
commission in the background of her consciousness, 
with all other thoughts referring to Miriam. 

But now, the recollection of this packet, and the evi¬ 
dent stress which Miriam laid upon its delivery at the 
specified time, impelled Hilda to hurry up the staircase 
of her tower, dreading lest the period should already 
have elapsed. 

No; the hour had not gone by, but was on the very 
point of passing. Hilda read the brief note of instruc¬ 
tion, on a corner of the envelope, and discovered, that, 
in case of Miriam’s absence from Rome, the packet was 
to be taken to its destination that very day. 

“ How nearly I had violated my promise! ” said 
Hilda. “ And, since we are separated forever, it has 
the sacredness of an injunction from a dead friend. 
There fs no time to be lost.” 

So Hilda set forth in the decline of the afternoon, 
and pursued her way towards the quarter of the city 
in which stands the Palazzo Cenci. Her habit of self- 
reliance was so simply strong, so natural, and now so 
well established by long use, that the idea of peril 
seldom or never occurred to Hilda, in her lonely life. 

She differed, in this particular, from the generality 
of her sex; although the customs and character of her 
native land often produce women who meet the world 
with gentle fearlessness, and discover that its terrors 
have been absurdly exaggerated by the tradition of 
mankind. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the 
apprehensiveness of women is quite gratuitous. Even 
as matters now stand, they are really safer in perilous 


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM 145 

situations and emergencies, than men; and might be 
still more so, if they trusted themselves more confid¬ 
ingly to the chivalry of manhood. In all her wander¬ 
ings about Rome, Hilda had gone and returned as 
securely as she had been accustomed to tread the 
familiar street of her New England village, where 
every face wore a look of recognition. With respect 
to whatever was evil, foul, and ugly, in this populous 
and corrupt city, she trod as if invisible, and not only 
so, but blind. She was altogether unconscious of any¬ 
thing wicked that went along the same pathway, but 
without jostling or impeding her, any more than gross 
substance hinders the wanderings of a spirit. Thus it 
is, that, bad as the world is said to have grown, inno¬ 
cence continues to make a paradise around itself, and 
keep it still unfallen. 

Hilda’s present expedition led her into what was — 
physically, at least — the foulest and ugliest part of 
Rome. In that vicinity lies the Ghetto, where thou¬ 
sands of Jews are crowded within a narrow compass, 
and lead a close, unclean, and multitudinous life, resem¬ 
bling that of maggots when they over-populate a decaying 
cheese. 

Hilda passed on the borders of this region, but had 
no occasion to step within it. Its neighborhood, how¬ 
ever, naturally partook of characteristics like its own. 
There was a confusion of black and hideous houses, 
piled massively out of the ruins of former ages; rude 
and destitute of plan, as a pauper would build his hovel, 
and yet displaying here and there an arched gateway, a 
cornice, a pillar, or a broken arcade, that might have 
adorned a palace. Many of the houses, indeed, as they 
stood, might once have been palaces, and possessed still 
a squalid kind of grandeur. Dirt was everywhere, strew¬ 
ing the narrow streets, and incrusting the tall shabbiness 
of the edifices, from the foundations to the roofs; it lay 
upon the thresholds, and looked out of the windows, and 
assumed the guise of human life in the children, that 
seemed to be engendered out of it. Their father was 
the sun, and their mother — a heap of Roman mud. 


146 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


It is a question of speculative interest, whether the 
ancient Romans were as unclean a people as we every¬ 
where find those who have succeeded them. There 
appears to be a kind of malignant spell in the spots 
that have been inhabited by these masters of the world, 
or made famous in their history; an inherited and inal¬ 
ienable curse, impelling their successors to fling dirt and 
defilement upon whatever temple, column, ruined palace, 
or triumphal arch may be nearest at hand ; and on every 
monument that the old Romans built. It is most prob¬ 
ably a classic trait, regularly transmitted downward, and 
perhaps a little modified by the better civilization of Chris¬ 
tianity ; so that Caesar may have trod narrower and 
filthier ways in his path to the Capitol, than even those 
of modern Rome. 

As the paternal abode of Beatrice, the gloomy old 
palace of the Cencis had an interest for Hilda, although 
not sufficiently strong, hitherto, to overcome the dis¬ 
heartening effect of the exterior, and draw her over its 
threshold. The adjacent piazza, of poor aspect, con¬ 
tained only an old woman selling roasted chestnuts and 
baked squash-seeds; she looked sharply at Hilda, and 
inquired whether she had lost her way. 

“ No,” said Hilda ; “ I seek the Palazzo Cenci.” 

“Yonder it is, fair signorina,” replied the Roman 
matron. “If you wish that packet delivered, which I 
see in your hand, my grandson Pietro shall run with it 
for a baiocco. The Cenci palace is a spot of ill-omen 
for young maidens.” 

Hilda thanked the old dame, but alleged the necessity 
of doing her errand in person. She approached the 
front of the palace, which, with all its immensity, had 
but a mean appearance, and seemed an abode which 
the lovely shade of Beatrice would not be apt to haunt, 
unless her doom made it inevitable. Some soldiers stood 
about the portal, and gazed at the brown-haired, fair¬ 
cheeked Anglo-Saxon girl, with approving glances, but 
not indecorously. Hilda began to ascend the staircase, 
three lofty flights of which were to be surmounted, before 
teaching the door whither she was bound. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP 

B ETWEEN Hilda and the sculptor there had been a 
kind of half-expressed understanding, that both 
were to visit the galleries of the Vatican the day subse¬ 
quent to their meeting at the studio. Kenyon, accord¬ 
ingly, failed not to be there, and wandered through 
the vast ranges of apartments, but saw nothing of his 
expected friend. The marble faces, which stand innu¬ 
merable along the walls, and have kept themselves so 
calm through the vicissitudes of twenty centuries, had no 
sympathy for his disappointment; and he, on the other 
hand, strode past these treasures and marvels of antique 
art, with the indifference which any pre-occupation of 
the feelings is apt to produce, in reference to objects of 
sculpture. Being of so cold and pure a substance, and 
mostly deriving their vitality more from thought than 
passion, they require to be seen through a perfectly 
transparent medium. 

And, moreover, Kenyon had counted so much upon 
Hilda’s delicate perceptions in enabling him to look at 
two or three of the statues, about which they had talked 
together, that the entire purpose of his visit was defeated 
by her absence. It is a delicious sort of mutual aid, 
when the united power of two sympathetic, yet dissimi¬ 
lar intelligences, is brought to bear upon a poem by 
reading it aloud, or upon a picture or statue, by view¬ 
ing it in each other’s company. Even if not a word of 
criticism be uttered, the insight of either party is won¬ 
derfully deepened, and the comprehension broadened; 
so that the inner mystery of a work of genius, hidden 
from one, will often reveal itself to two. Missing such 

i47 


148 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


help, Kenyon saw nothing at the Vatican which he had 
not seen a thousand times before, and more perfectly 
than now. 

In the chill of his disappointment, he suspected that 
it was a very cold art to which he had devoted himself. 
He questioned, at that moment, whether sculpture really 
ever softens and warms the material which it handles; 
whether carved marble is anything but limestone, after 
all; and whether the Apollo Belvidere itself possesses 
any merit above its physical beauty, or is beyond criti¬ 
cism even in that generally acknowledged excellence. 
In flitting glances, heretofore, he had seemed to behold 
this statue as something ethereal and godlike, but not 
now. 

Nothing pleased him, unless it were the group of the 
Laocoon, which, in its immortal agony, impressed Kenyon 
as a type of the long, fierce struggle of man, involved in 
the knotted entanglements of Error and Evil, those two 
snakes, which, if no divine help intervene, will be sure 
to strangle him and his children in the end. What he 
most admired was the strange calmness diffused through 
this bitter strife; so that it resembled the rage of the 
sea, made calm by its immensity, or the tumult of 
Niagara which ceases to be tumult because it lasts for¬ 
ever. Thus, in the Laocoon, the horror of a moment 
grew to be the fate of interminable ages. Kenyon 
looked upon the group as the one triumph of sculpture, 
creating the repose, which is essential to it, in the very 
acme of turbulent effort; but, in truth, it was his mood 
of unwonted despondency that made him so sensitive to 
the terrible magnificence, as well as to the sad moral of 
this work. Hilda herself could not have helped him 
to see it with nearly such intelligence. 

A good deal more depressed than the nature of the 
disappointment warranted, Kenyon went to his studio, 
and took in hand a great lump of clay. He soon found, 
however, that his plastic cunning had departed from him 
for the time. So he wandered forth again into the un¬ 
easy streets of Rome, and walked up and down the 
Corso, where, at that period of the day, a throng of 


THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP 149 

passers-by and loiterers choked up the narrow sidewalk. 
A penitent was thus brought in contact with the sculptor. 

It was a figure in a white robe, with a kind of feature¬ 
less mask over the face, through the apertures of which 
the eyes threw an unintelligible light. Such odd, ques¬ 
tionable shapes are often seen gliding through the streets 
of Italian cities, and are understood to be usually per¬ 
sons of rank, who quit their palaces, their gayeties, their 
pomp and pride, and assume the penitential garb for a 
season, with a view of thus expiating some crime, or 
atoning for the aggregate of petty sins that make up a 
worldly life. It is their custom to ask alms, and perhaps 
to measure the duration of their penance by the time 
requisite to accumulate a sum of money out of the little 
droppings of individual charity. The avails are devoted 
to some beneficent or religious purpose; so that the 
benefit accruing to their own souls is, in a manner, linked 
with a good done, or intended, to their fellow-men. 
These figures have a ghastly and startling effect, not so 
much from any very impressive peculiarity in the garb, 
as from the mystery which they bear about with them, 
and the sense that there is an acknowledged sinfulness 
as the nucleus of it. 

In the present instance, however, the penitent asked 
no alms of Kenyon ; although, for the space of a minute 
or two, they stood face to face, the hollow eyes of the 
mask encountering the sculptor’s gaze. But, just as 
the crowd was about to separate them, the former spoke, 
in a voice not unfamiliar to Kenyon, though rendered 
remote and strange by the guilty veil through which it 
penetrated. 

“Is all well with you, signor ? ” inquired the penitent, 
out of the cloud in which he walked. 

“ All is well,” answered Kenyon. “ And with you ? ” 

But the masked penitent returned no answer, being 
borne away by the pressure of the throng. 

The sculptor stood watching the figure, and was almost 
of a mind to hurry after him and follow up the conver¬ 
sation that had been begun; but it occurred to him that 
there is a sanctity (or as we might rather term it, an 


1 5 o 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


inviolable etiquette) which prohibits the recognition of 
persons who choose to walk under the veil of penitence. 

“ How strange! ” thought Kenyon to himself. “ It 
was surely Donatello! What can bring him to Rome, 
where his recollections must be so painful, and his pres¬ 
ence not without peril ? And Miriam ! Can she have 
accompanied him ? ” 

He walked on, thinking of the vast change in Dona¬ 
tello, since those days of gayety and innocence, when 
the young Italian was new in Rome, and was just begin¬ 
ning to be sensible of a more poignant felicity than he 
had yet experienced, in the sunny warmth of Miriam’s 
smile. The growth of a soul, which the sculptor half 
imagined that he had witnessed in his friend, seemed 
hardly worth the heavy price that it had cost, in the 
sacrifice of those simple enjoyments that were gone for¬ 
ever. A creature of antique healthfulness had vanished 
from the earth; and, in his stead, there was only one 
other morbid and remorseful man, among millions that 
were cast in the same indistinguishable mould. 

The accident of thus meeting Donatello — the glad 
Faun of his imagination and memory, now transformed 
into a gloomy penitent — contributed to deepen the cloud 
that had fallen over Kenyon’s spirits. It caused him to 
fancy, as we generally do, in the petty troubles which 
extend not a hand’s breadth beyond our own sphere, 
that the whole world was saddening around him. It 
took the sinister aspect of an omen, although he could 
not distinctly see what trouble it might forebode. 

If it had not been for a peculiar sort of pique, with 
which lovers are much conversant, a preposterous kind 
of resentment which endeavors to wreak itself on the 
beloved object, and on one’s own heart, in requital of 
mishaps for which neither are in fault, Kenyon might at 
once have betaken himself to Hilda’s studio, and asked 
why the appointment was not kept. But the interview 
of to-day was to have been so rich in present joy, and 
its results so important to his future life, that the bleak 
failure was too much for his equanimity. He was angry 
with poor Hilda, and censured her without a hearing; 


THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP 151 

angry with himself, too, and therefore inflicted on this 
latter criminal the severest penalty in his power; angry 
with the day that was passing over him, and would not 
permit its latter hours to redeem the disappointment of 
the morning. 

To confess the truth, it had been the sculptor’s pur¬ 
pose to stake all his hopes on that interview in the gal¬ 
leries of the Vatican. Straying with Hilda through 
those long vistas of ideal beauty, he meant, at last, to 
utter himself upon that theme which lovers are fain to 
discuss in village-lanes, in wood-paths, on seaside sands, 
in crowded streets ; it little matters where, indeed, since 
roses are sure to blush along the way, and daisies and 
violets to spring beneath the feet, if the spoken word be 
graciously received. He was resolved to make proof 
whether the kindness that Hilda evinced for him was 
the precious token of an individual preference, or merely 
the sweet fragrance of her disposition, which other friends 
might share as largely as himself. He would try if it 
were possible to take this shy, yet frank, and innocently 
fearless creature captive, and imprison her in his heart, 
and make her sensible of a wider freedom there, than 
in all the world besides. 

It was hard, we must allow, to see the shadow of a 
wintry sunset falling upon a day that was to have been 
so bright, and to find himself just where yesterday had 
left him, only with a sense of being drearily balked, and 
defeated without an opportunity for struggle. So much 
had been anticipated from these now vanished hours, 
that it seemed as if no other day could bring back the 
same golden hopes. 

In a case like this, it is doubtful whether Kenyon 
could have done a much better thing than he actually 
did, by going to dine at the Cafe Nuovo, and drinking a 
flask of Montefiascone; longing, the while, for a beaker 
or two of Donatello’s Sunshine. It would have been 
just the wine to cure a lover’s melancholy, by illuminat¬ 
ing his heart with tender light and warmth, and sugges¬ 
tions of undefined hopes too ethereal for his morbid 
humor to examine and reject them. 


152 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


No decided improvement resulting from the draught 
of Montefiascone, he went to the Teatro Argentino, and 
sat gloomily to see an Italian comedy, which ought to 
have cheered him somewhat, being full of glancing mer¬ 
riment, and effective over everybody’s risibilities except 
his own. The sculptor came out, however, before the 
close of the performance, as disconsolate as he went in. 

As he made his way through the complication of nar¬ 
row streets, which perplex that portion of the city, a 
carriage passed him. It was driven rapidly, but not too 
fast for the light of a gas-lamp to flare upon a face 
within; especially as it was bent forward, appearing to 
recognize him, while a beckoning hand was protruded 
from the window. On his part, Kenyon at once knew 
the face, and hastened to the carriage, which had now 
stopped. 

“ Miriam ! you in Rome ? ” he exclaimed. “ And your 
friends know nothing of it ? ” 

“Is all well with you ? ” she asked. 

This inquiry, in the identical words which Donatello 
had so recently addressed to him, from beneath the peni¬ 
tent’s mask, startled the sculptor. Either the previous 
disquietude of his mind, or some tone in Miriam’s voice, 
or the unaccountableness of beholding her there at all, 
made it seem ominous. 

“ All is well, I believe,” answered he, doubtfully. “ I 
am aware of no misfortune. Have you any to an¬ 
nounce ? ” 

He looked still more earnestly at Miriam, and felt a 
dreamy uncertainty whether it was really herself to whom 
he spoke. True ; there were those beautiful features, the 
contour of which he had studied too often, and with a 
sculptor’s accuracy of perception, to be in any doubt that 
it was Miriam’s identical face. But he was conscious of 
a change, the nature of which he could not satisfactorily 
define ; it might be merely her dress, which, imperfect as 
the light was, he saw to be richer than the simple garb 
that she had usually worn. The effect, he fancied, was 
partly owing to a gem which she had on her bosom ; not 
a diamond, but something that glimmered with a ctear, 


THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP 153 

red lustre, like the stars in a southern sky. Somehow or 
other, this colored light seemed an emanation of herself, 
as if all that was passionate and glowing, in her native 
disposition, had crystallized upon her breast, and were 
just now scintillating, more brilliantly than ever, in sym¬ 
pathy with some emotion of her heart. 

Of course there could be no real doubt that it was 
Miriam, his artist friend, with whom and Hilda he had 
spent so many pleasant and familiar hours, and whom he 
had last seen at Perugia, bending with Donatello beneath 
the bronze pope’s benediction. It must be that selfsame 
Miriam; but the sensitive sculptor felt a difference of 
manner, which impressed him more than he conceived 
it possible to be affected by so external a thing. He 
remembered the gossip so prevalent in Rome on Miriam’s 
first appearance ; how that she was no real artist, but the 
daughter of an illustrious or golden lineage, who was 
merely playing at necessity; mingling with human strug¬ 
gle for her pastime; stepping out of her native sphere 
only for an interlude, just as a princess might alight from 
her gilded equipage to go on foot through a rustic lane. 
And now, after a mask in which love and death had per¬ 
formed their several parts, she had resumed her proper 
character. 

“ Have you anything to tell me ? ” cried he, impa¬ 
tiently ; for nothing causes a more disagreeable vibra¬ 
tion of the nerves than this perception of ambiguousness 
in familiar persons or affairs. “ Speak; for my spirits 
and patience have been much tried to-day.” 

Miriam put her finger on her lips, and seemed desirous 
that Kenyon should know of the presence of a third per¬ 
son. He now saw, indeed, that there was some one beside 
her in the carriage, hitherto concealed by her attitude ; a 
man, it appeared, with a sallow Italian face, which the 
sculptor distinguished but imperfectly, and did not rec¬ 
ognize. 

“ I can tell you nothing,” she replied; and leaning 
towards him, she whispered — appearing then more like 
the Miriam whom he knew, than in what had before 
passed — “ Only, when the lamp goes out do not despair.” 


*54 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


The carriage drove on, leaving Kenyon to muse over 
this unsatisfactory interview, which seemed to have 
served no better purpose than to fill his mind with more 
ominous forebodings than before. Why were Donatello 
and Miriam in Rome, where both, in all likelihood, might 
have much to dread ? And why had one and the other 
addressed him with a question that seemed prompted by 
a knowledge of some calamity, either already fallen on 
his unconscious head, or impending closely over him ? 

“I am sluggish,” muttered Kenyon, to himself; “a 
weak, nerveless fool, devoid of energy and promptitude; 
or neither Donatello nor Miriam could have escaped me 
thus ! They are aware of some misfortune that concerns 
me deeply. How soon am I to know it, too ? ” 

There seemed but a single calamity possible to happen 
within so narrow a sphere as that with which the sculp¬ 
tor was connected; and even to that one mode of evil 
he could assign no definite shape, but only felt that it 
must have some reference to Hilda. 

Flinging aside the morbid hesitation, and the dally- 
ings with his own wishes, which he had permitted to 
influence his mind throughout the day, he now hastened 
to the Via Portoghese. Soon the old palace stood before 
him, with its massive tower rising into the clouded night; 
obscured from view at its midmost elevation, but revealed 
again, higher upward, by the Virgin’s lamp that twinkled 
on the summit. Feeble as it was, in the broad, sur¬ 
rounding gloom, that little ray made no inconsiderable 
illumination among Kenyon’s sombre thoughts; for, re¬ 
membering Miriam’s last words, a fantasy had seized 
him that he should find the sacred lamp extinguished. 

And, even while he stood gazing, as a mariner at the 
star in which he puts his trust, the light quivered, sank, 
gleamed up again, and finally went out, leaving the bat¬ 
tlements of Hilda’s tower in utter darkness. For the 
first time in centuries, the consecrated and legendary 
flame, before the loftiest shrine in Rome, had ceased to 
burn. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE DESERTED SHRINE 

K ENYON knew the sanctity which Hilda (faithful 
Protestant, and daughter of the Puritans, as the 
girl was) imputed to this shrine. He was aware of the 
profound feeling of responsibility, as well earthly as re¬ 
ligious, with which her conscience had been impressed, 
when she became the occupant of her aerial chamber, 
and undertook the task of keeping the consecrated lamp 
alight. There was an accuracy and a certainty about 
Hilda’s movements, as regarded all matters that lay 
deep enough to have their roots in right or wrong, which 
made it as possible and safe to rely upon the timely and 
careful trimming of this lamp (if she were in life, and 
able to creep up the steps), as upon the rising of to¬ 
morrow’s sun, with lustre undiminished from to-day. 

The sculptor could scarcely believe his eyes, therefore, 
when he saw the flame flicker and expire. His sight 
had surely deceived him. And now, since the light did 
not reappear, there must be some smoke-wreath or im¬ 
penetrable mist brooding about the tower’s gray old 
head, and obscuring it from the lower world. But no ! 
For right over the dim battlements, as the wind chased 
away a mass of clouds, he beheld a star, and, moreover, 
by an earnest concentration of his sight, was soon able 
to discern even the darkened shrine itself. There was 
no obscurity around the tower; no infirmity of his own 
vision. The flame had exhausted its supply of oil, and 
become extinct. But where was Hilda ? 

A man in a cloak happened to be passing; and Ken¬ 
yon — anxious to distrust the testimony of his senses, if 
he could get more acceptable evidence on the other side 
— appealed to him. 


i55 


56 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Do me the favor, signor,” said he, “ to look at the 
top of yonder tower, and tell me whether you see the 
lamp burning at the Virgin’s shrine.” 

“ The lamp, signor ? ” answered the man, without at 
first troubling himself to look up. “ The lamp that has 
burned these four hundred years! how is it possible, 
signor, that it should not be burning now ? ” 

“ But look ! ” said the sculptor, impatiently. 

With good-natured indulgence for what he seemed to 
consider as the whim of an eccentric, Forestiero, the 
Italian, carelessly threw his eyes upwards; but, as soon 
as he perceived that there was really no light, he lifted 
his hands with a vivid expression of wonder and alarm. 

“ The lamp is extinguished ! ” cried he. “ The lamp 
that has been burning these four hundred years! This 
surely must portend some great misfortune; and, by 
my advice, signor, you will hasten hence, lest the tower 
tumble on our heads. A priest once told me, that, if 
the Virgin withdrew her blessing, and the light went 
out, the old Palazzo del Torre would sink into the earth, 
with all that dwell in it. There will be a terrible crash 
before morning! ” 

The stranger made the best of his way from the 
doomed premises ; while Kenyon, — who would willingly 
have seen the tower crumble down before his eyes, on 
condition of Hilda’s safety, — determined, late as it was, 
to attempt ascertaining if she were in her dove-cote. 

Passing through the arched entrance, — which, as is 
often the case with Roman entrances, was as accessible 
at midnight as at noon,— he groped his way to the broad 
staircase, and, lighting his wax taper, went glimmering 
up the multitude of steps that led to Hilda’s door. The 
hour being so unseasonable, he intended merely to 
knock, and, as soon as her voice from within should re¬ 
assure him, to retire, keeping his explanations and apol¬ 
ogies for a fitter time. Accordingly, reaching the lofty 
height, where the maiden, as he trusted, lay asleep, with 
angels watching over her, though the Virgin seemed to 
have suspended her care, he tapped lightly at the door- 
panels— then knocked more forcibly — then thundered 


THE DESERTED SHRINE 157 

an impatient summons. No answer came; Hilda evi¬ 
dently was not there. 

After assuring himself that this must be the fact, 
Kenyon descended the stairs, but made a pause at every 
successive stage, and knocked at the door of its apart¬ 
ment, regardless whose slumbers he might disturb, in 
his anxiety to learn where the girl had last been seen. 
But, at each closed entrance, there came those hollow 
echoes, which a chamber, or any dwelling, great or 
small, never sends out, in response to human knuckles 
or iron hammer, as long as there is life within to keep 
its heart from getting dreary. 

Once, indeed, on the lower landing-place, the sculptor 
fancied that there was a momentary stir, inside the 
door, as if somebody were listening at the threshold. 
He hoped, at least, that the small, iron-barred aperture 
would be unclosed, through which Roman housekeepers 
are wont to take careful cognizance of applicants for 
admission, from a traditionary dread, perhaps, of letting 
in a robber or assassin. But it remained shut; neither 
was the sound repeated; and Kenyon concluded that 
his excited nerves had played a trick upon his senses, 
as they are apt to do when we most wish for the clear 
evidence of the latter. 

There was nothing to be done, save to go heavily 
away, and await whatever good or ill to-morrow’s day¬ 
light might disclose. 

Betimes in the morning, therefore, Kenyon went 
back to the Via Portoghese, before the slant rays of the 
sun had descended half way down the gray front of 
Hilda’s tower. As he drew near its base, he saw the 
doves perched in full session, on the sunny height of 
the battlements, and a pair of them — who were prob¬ 
ably their mistress’s especial pets, and the confidants of 
her bosom-secrets, if Hilda had any — came shooting 
down, and made a feint of alighting on his shoulder. 
But, though they evidently recognized him, their shy¬ 
ness would not yet allow so decided a demonstration. 
Kenyon’s eyes followed them as they flew upward, hop¬ 
ing that they might have come as joyful messengers of 


i 5 8 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


the girl’s safety, and that he should discern her slen¬ 
der form, half hidden by the parapet, trimming the ex¬ 
tinguished lamp at the Virgin’s shrine, just as other 
maidens set about the little duties of a household. Or, 
perhaps, he might see her gentle and sweet face smiling 
down upon him, midway towards heaven, as if she had 
flown hither for a day or two, just to visit her kindred, 
but had been drawn earthward again by the spell of 
unacknowledged love. 

But his eyes were blessed by no such fair vision or 
reality ; nor, in truth, were the eager, unquiet flutterings 
of the doves indicative of any joyful intelligence, which 
they longed to share with Hilda’s friend, but of anxious 
inquiries that they knew not how to utter. They could 
not tell, any more than he, whither their lost companion 
had withdrawn herself, but were in the same void de¬ 
spondency with him, feeling their sunny and airy lives 
darkened and grown imperfect, now that her sweet 
society was taken out of it. 

In the brisk morning air, Kenyon found it much easier 
to pursue his researches than at the preceding midnight, 
when if any slumberers heard the clamor that he made, 
they had responded only with sullen and drowsy male¬ 
dictions, and turned to sleep again. It must be a very 
dear and intimate reality for which people will be con¬ 
tent to give up a dream. When the sun was fairly up, 
however, it was quite another thing. The heterogeneous 
population, inhabiting the lower floor of the old tower, 
and the other extensive regions of the palace, were now 
willing to tell all they knew, and imagine a great deal 
more. The amiability of these Italians, assisted by their 
sharp and nimble wits, caused them to overflow with 
plausible suggestions, and to be very bounteous in their 
avowals of interest for the lost Hilda. In a less demon¬ 
strative people, such expressions would have implied an 
eagerness to search land and sea, and never rest till she 
were found. In the mouths that uttered them, they 
meant good wishes, and were, so far, better than indif¬ 
ference. There was little doubt that many of them felt 
a genuine kindness for the shy, brown-haired, delicate 


THE DESERTED SHRINE 


1 S9 


young foreign maiden, who had flown from some distant 
land to alight upon their tower, where she consorted 
only with the doves. But their energy expended itself 
in exclamation, and they were content to leave all more 
active measures to Kenyon, and to the Virgin, whose 
affair it was, to see that the faithful votary of her lamp 
received no harm. 

In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhab¬ 
itants might be, the concierge under the archway would 
be cognizant of all their incomings and issuings forth. 
But, except in rare cases, the general entrance and main 
staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the street, 
of which they form a sort of by-lane. The sculptor, 
therefore, could hope to find information about Hilda’s 
movements only from casual observers. 

On probing the knowledge of these people to the bot¬ 
tom, there was various testimony as to the period when 
the girl had last been seen. Some said that it was four 
days since there had been a trace of her; but an Eng¬ 
lish lady, in the second piano of the palace, was rather 
of opinion that she had met her, the morning before, 
with a drawing-book in her hand. Having no acquaint¬ 
ance with the young person, she had taken little notice, 
and might have been mistaken. A count, on the piano 
next above, was very certain that he had lifted his hat to 
Hilda, under the archway, two afternoons ago. An old 
woman, who had formerly tended the shrine, threw some 
light upon the matter, by testifying that the lamp re¬ 
quired to be replenished once, at least, in three days, 
though its reservoir of oil was exceedingly capa¬ 
cious. 

On the whole, though there was other evidence enough 
to create some perplexity, Kenyon could not satisfy him¬ 
self that she had been visible since the afternoon of the 
third preceding day, when a fruit-seller remembered her 
coming out of the arched passage, with a sealed packet 
in her hand. As nearly as he could ascertain, this was 
within an hour after Hilda had taken leave of the sculp¬ 
tor, at his own studio, with the understanding that they 
were to meet at the Vatican the next day. Two nights, 


160 THE MARBLE FAUN 

therefore, had intervened, during which the lost maiden 
was unaccounted for. 

The door of Hilda’s apartments was still locked, as on 
the preceding night; but Kenyon sought out the wife of 
the person who sublet them, and prevailed on her to 
give him admittance by means of the duplicate key, which 
the good woman had in her possession. On entering, 
the maidenly neatness and simple grace, recognizable in 
all the arrangements, made him visibly sensible that this 
was the daily haunt of a pure soul, in whom religion and 
the love of beauty were as one. 

Thence, the sturdy Roman matron led the sculptor 
across a narrow passage, and threw open the door of a 
small chamber, on the threshold of which he reverently 
paused. Within, there was a bed, covered with white 
drapery, enclosed with snowy curtains, like a tent, and 
of barely width enough for a slender figure to repose 
upon it. The sight of this cool, airy, and secluded 
bower, caused the lover’s heart to stir, as if enough of 
Hilda’s gentle dreams were lingering there to make him 
happy for a single instant. But then came the closer 
consciousness of her loss, bringing along with it a sharp 
sting of anguish. 

“ Behold, signor,” said the matron ; “here is the little 
staircase by which the signorina used to ascend and trim 
the blessed Virgin’s lamp. She was worthy to be a 
Catholic, such pains the good child bestowed to keep it 
burning; and doubtless the blessed Mary will intercede 
for her, in consideration of her pious offices, heretic 
though she was. What will become of the old palazzo, 
now that the lamp is extinguished, the saints above us 
only know! Will you mount, signor, to the battlements, 
and see if she have left any trace of herself there ? ” 

The sculptor stepped across the chamber and ascended 
the little staircase, which gave him access to the breezy 
summit of the tower. It affected him inexpressibly to 
see a bouquet of beautiful flowers beneath the shrine, 
and to recognize in them an offering of his own to Hilda, 
who had put them in a vase of water and dedicated them 
to the Virgin, in a spirit partly fanciful, perhaps, but 


THE DESERTED SHRINE 161 


still partaking of the religious sentiment which so pro¬ 
foundly influenced her character. One rose-bud, indeed, 
she had selected for herself from the rich mass of flow¬ 
ers ; for Kenyon well remembered recognizing it in her 
bosom when he last saw her at his studio. 

“That little part of my great love she took,” said he 
to himself. “ The remainder she would have devoted to 
heaven; but has left it withering in the sun and wind. 
Ah! Hilda, Hilda, had you given me a right to watch 
over you, this evil had not come ! ” 

“ Be not downcast, signorino mio,” said the Roman 
matron, in response to the deep sigh which struggled out 
of Kenyon’s breast. “ The dear little maiden, as we see, 
has decked yonder blessed shrine as devoutly as I myself, 
or any other good Catholic woman, could have done. It 
is a religious act, and has more than the efficacy of a 
prayer. The signorina will as surely come back as the 
sun will fall through the window to-morrow no less than 
to-day. Her own doves have often been missing for a 
day or two, but they were sure to come fluttering about 
her head again, when she least expected them. So will 
it be with this dovelike child.” 

“ It might be so,” thought Kenyon, with yearning 
anxiety, “ if a pure maiden were as safe as a dove, in 
this evil world of ours.” 

As they returned through the studio, with the furni¬ 
ture and arrangements of which the sculptor was familiar, 
he missed a small, ebony writing-desk that he remem¬ 
bered as having always been placed on a table there. 
He knew that it was Hilda’s custom to deposit her letters 
in this desk, as well as other little objects of which she 
wished to be specially careful. 

“ What has become of it ? ” he suddenly inquired, lay¬ 
ing his* hand on the table. 

“Become of what, pray?” exclaimed the woman, a 
little disturbed. “Does the signor suspect a robbery, 
then ? ” 

“The signorina’s writing-desk is gone,” replied Ken¬ 
yon ; “ it always stood on this table, and I myself saw it 
there only a few days ago.” 


i 62 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Ah, well! ” said the woman, recovering her com¬ 
posure, which she seemed partly to have lost. “The 
signorina has doubtless taken it away with her. The 
fact is of good omen; for it proves that she did not go 
unexpectedly, and is likely to return when it may best 
suit her convenience.” 

“This is very singular,” observed Kenyon. “Have 
the rooms been entered by yourself, or any other per¬ 
son, since the signorina’s disappearance ? ” 

“ Not by me, signor, so help me Heaven and the 
saints! ” said the matron. “ And I question whether 
there are more than two keys in Rome that will suit 
this strange, old lock. Here is one; and as for the 
other, the signorina carries it in her pocket.” 

The sculptor had no reason to doubt the word of this 
respectable dame. She appeared to be well-meaning 
and kind-hearted, as Roman matrons generally are; 
except when a fit of passion incites them to shower hor¬ 
rible curses on an obnoxious individual, or perhaps to 
stab him with the steel stiletto that serves them for a 
hair-pin. But Italian asseverations of any questionable 
fact, however true they may chance to be, have no wit¬ 
ness of their truth in the faces of those who utter them. 
Their words are spoken with strange earnestness, and 
yet do not vouch for themselves as coming from any 
depth, like roots drawn out of the substance of the soul, 
with some of the soil clinging to them. There is always 
a something inscrutable, instead of frankness, in their 
eyes. In short, they lie so much like truth, and speak 
truth so much as if they were telling a lie, that their 
auditor suspects himself in the wrong, whether he be¬ 
lieves or disbelieves them; it being the one thing certain, 
that falsehood is seldom an intolerable burden to the 
tenderest of Italian consciences. 

“ It is very strange what can have become of the 
desk! ” repeated Kenyon, looking the woman in the 
face. 

“Very strange, indeed, signor,” she replied, meekly, 
without turning away her eyes in the least, but check¬ 
ing his insight of them at about half-an-inch below the 


THE DESERTED SHRINE 163 

surface. “ I think the signorina must have taken it with 
her.” 

It seemed idle to linger here any longer. Kenyon 
therefore departed, after making an arrangement with 
the woman, by the terms of which she was to allow the 
apartments to remain in their present state, on his as¬ 
suming responsibility for the rent. 

He spent the day in making such further search and 
investigation as he found practicable; and, though at 
first trammelled by an unwillingness to draw public atten¬ 
tion to Hilda’s affairs, the urgency of the circumstances 
soon compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest. In the 
course of a week, he tried all conceivable modes of 
fathoming the mystery, not merely by his personal 
efforts and those of his brother-artists and friends, but 
through the police, who readily undertook the task and 
expressed strong confidence of success. But the Roman 
police has very little efficacy, except in the interest of the 
despotism of which it is a tool. With their cocked hats, 
shoulder-belts, and swords, they wear a sufficiently im¬ 
posing aspect, and doubtless keep their eyes open wide 
enough to track a political offender, but are too often 
blind to private outrage, be it murder or any lesser crime. 
Kenyon counted little upon their assistance, and profited 
by it not at all. 

Remembering the mystic words which Miriam had 
addressed to him, he was anxious to meet her, but knew 
not whither she had gone, nor how to obtain an interview 
either with herself or Donatello. The days wore away, 
and still there were no tidings of the lost one; no lamp 
rekindled before the Virgin’s shrine; no light shining 
into the lover’s heart; no star of Hope — he was ready 
to say, as he turned his eyes almost reproachfully up¬ 
ward — in heaven itself. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA’S DOVES 

LONG with the lamp on Hilda’s tower, the sculptor 



now felt that a light had gone out, or, at least, was 
ominously obscured, to which he owed whatever cheer¬ 
fulness had heretofore illuminated his cold, artistic life. 
The idea of this girl had been like a taper of virgin wax, 
burning with a pure and steady flame, and chasing away 
the evil spirits out of the magic circle of its beams. It 
had darted its rays afar, and modified the whole sphere 
in which Kenyon had his being. Beholding it no more, 
he at once found himself in darkness and astray. 

This was the time, perhaps, when Kenyon first became 
sensible what a dreary city is Rome, and what a terrible 
weight is there imposed on human life, when any gloom 
within the heart corresponds to the spell of ruin, that has 
been thrown over the site of ancient empire. He wan¬ 
dered, as it were, and stumbled over the fallen columns, 
and among the tombs, and groped his way into the sepul¬ 
chral darkness of the catacombs, and found no path 
emerging from them. The happy may well enough 
continue to be such, beneath the brilliant sky of Rome. 
But, if you go thither in melancholy mood — if you go 
with a ruin in your heart, or with a vacant site there, 
where once stood the airy fabric of happiness, now van¬ 
ished— all the ponderous gloom of the Roman Past will 
pile itself upon that spot, and crush you down as with 
the heaped-up marble and granite, the earth-mounds, 
and multitudinous bricks, of its material decay. 

It might be supposed that a melancholy man would 
here make acquaintance with a grim philosophy. He 
should learn to bear patiently his individual griefs, that 
endure only for one little lifetime, when here are the 


164 


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA’S DOVES 165 

tokens of such infinite misfortune on an imperial scale, 
and when so many far landmarks of time, all around him, 
are bringing the remoteness of a thousand years ago into 
the sphere of yesterday. But it is in vain that you seek 
this shrub of bitter sweetness among the plants that root 
themselves on the roughness of massive walls, or trail 
downward from the capitals of pillars, or spring out of 
the green turf in the palace of the Caesars. It does not 
grow in Rome; not even among the five hundred vari¬ 
ous weeds which deck the grassy arches of the Coliseum. 
You look through a vista of century beyond century — 
through much shadow, and a little sunshine — through 
barbarism and civilization, alternating with one another, 
like actors that have pre-arranged their parts — through 
a broad pathway of progressive generations bordered by 
palaces and temples, and bestridden by old, triumphal 
arches, until, in the distance, you behold the obelisks, 
with their unintelligible inscriptions, hinting at a past 
infinitely more remote than history can define. Your 
own life is as nothing, when compared with that immeas¬ 
urable distance; but still you demand, none the less ear¬ 
nestly, a gleam of sunshine, instead of a speck of shadow, 
on the step or two that will bring you to your quiet rest. 

How exceedingly absurd! All men, from the date of 
the earliest obelisk—and of the whole world, moreover, 
since that far epoch, and before — have made a similar 
demand, and seldom had their wish. If they had it, what 
are they the better, now ? But, even while you taunt 
yourself with this sad lesson, your heart cries out ob¬ 
streperously for its small share of earthly happiness, and 
will not be appeased by the myriads of dead hopes that 
lie crushed into the soil of Rome. How wonderful that 
this our narrow foothold of the Present should hold its 
own so constantly, and, while every moment changing, 
should still be like a rock betwixt the encountering tides 
of the long Past, and the infinite To-come. 

Man of marble though he was, the sculptor grieved 
for the Irrevocable. Looking back upon Hilda’s way 
of life, he marvelled at his own blind stupidity, which 
had kept him from remonstrating — as a friend, if with 


166 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


no stronger right—against the risks that she continually 
encountered. Being so innocent, she had no means of 
estimating those risks, nor even a possibility of suspect¬ 
ing their existence. But he — who had spent years in 
Rome, with a man’s far wider scope of observation and 
experience — knew things that made him shudder. It 
seemed to Kenyon, looking through the darkly-colored 
medium of his fears, that all modes of crime were 
crowded into the close intricacy of Roman streets, and 
that there was no redeeming element, such as exists in 
other dissolute and wicked cities. 

For here was a priesthood, pampered, sensual, with 
red and bloated cheeks, and carnal eyes. With ap¬ 
parently a grosser development of animal life than most 
men, they were placed in an unnatural relation with 
woman, and thereby lost the healthy, human conscience 
that pertains to other human beings, who own the sweet 
household ties connecting them with wife and daughter. 
And here was an indolent nobility, with no high aims or 
opportunities, but cultivating a vicious way of life, as if 
it were an art, and the only one which they cared to 
learn. Here was a population, high and low, that had 
no genuine belief in virtue; and if they recognized any 
act as criminal, they might throw off all care, remorse, 
and memory of it, by kneeling a little while at the con¬ 
fessional, and rising unburdened, active, elastic, and 
incited by fresh appetite for the next ensuing sin. Here 
was a soldiery, who felt Rome to be their conquered 
city, and doubtless considered themselves the legal 
inheritors of the foul license which Gaul, Goth, and 
Vandal have here exercised in days gone by. 

And what localities for new crime existed in those 
guilty sites, where the crime of departed ages used to be 
at home, and had its long, hereditary haunt! what street 
in Rome, what ancient ruin, what one place where man 
had standing-room, what fallen stone was there, unstained 
with one or another kind of guilt! In some of the vicis¬ 
situdes of the city’s pride, or its calamity, the dark tide 
of human evil had swelled over it, far higher than the 
Tiber ever rose against the acclivities of the seven hills. 


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA’S DOVES 167 

To Kenyon’s morbid view, there appeared to be a con¬ 
tagious element, rising fog-like from the ancient deprav¬ 
ity of Rome, and brooding over the dead and half-rotten 
city, as nowhere else on earth. It prolonged the ten¬ 
dency to crime, and developed an instantaneous growth 
of it, whenever an opportunity was found. And where 
could it be found so readily as here! In those vast pal¬ 
aces, there were a hundred remote nooks where Inno¬ 
cence might shriek in vain. Beneath meaner houses 
there were unsuspected dungeons that had once been 
princely chambers, and open to the daylight; but, on 
account of some wickedness there perpetrated, each 
passing age had thrown its handful of dust upon the 
spot, and buried it from sight. Only ruffians knew of 
its existence, and kept it for murder, and worse crime. 

Such was the city through which Hilda, for three years 
past, had been wandering without a protector or a guide. 
She had trodden lightly over the crumble of old crimes; 
she had taken her way amid the grime and corruption 
which Paganism had left there, and a perverted Christi¬ 
anity had made more noisome; walking saintlike through 
it all, with white, innocent feet; until, in some dark pit- 
fall that lay right across her path, she had vanished out 
of sight. It was terrible to imagine what hideous outrage 
might have thrust her into that abyss ! 

Then the lover tried to comfort himself with the idea 
that Hilda’s sanctity was a sufficient safeguard. Ah, yes; 
she was so pure! The angels that were of the same 
sisterhood would never let Hilda come to harm. A 
miracle would be wrought on her behalf, as naturally as 
a father would stretch out his hand to save a best-beloved 
child. Providence would keep a little area and atmos¬ 
phere about her, as safe and wholesome as heaven itself, 
although the flood of perilous iniquity might hem her 
round, and its black waves hang curling above her head! 
But these reflections were of slight avail. No doubt they 
were the religious truth. Yet the ways of Providence 
are utterly inscrutable; and many a murder has been 
done, and many an innocent virgin has lifted her white 
arms, beseeching its aid in her extremity, and all in vain, 


168 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


so that, though Providence is infinitely good and wise, 
— and perhaps for that very reason, — it may be half an 
eternity before the great circle of its scheme shall bring 
us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows! 
But what the lover asked was such prompt consolation 
as might consist with the brief span of mortal life; the 
assufance of Hilda’s present safety, and her restoration 
within that very hour. 

An imaginative man, he suffered the penalty of his 
endowment in the hundred-fold variety of gloomily-tinted 
scenes that it presented to him, in which Hilda was always 
a central figure. The sculptor forgot his marble. Rome 
ceased to be anything, for him, but a labyrinth of dismal 
streets, in one or another of which the lost girl had dis¬ 
appeared. He was haunted with the idea, that some 
circumstance, most important to be known, and, perhaps, 
easily discoverable, had hitherto been overlooked, and that, 
if he could lay hold of this one clue, it would guide him 
directly in the track of Hilda’s footsteps. With this 
purpose in view, he went, every morning, to the Via 
Portoghese, and made it the starting point of fresh inves¬ 
tigations. After nightfall, too, he invariably returned 
thither, with a faint hope fluttering at his heart, that the 
lamp might again be shining on the summit of the tower, 
and would dispel this ugly mystery out of the circle con¬ 
secrated by its rays. There being no point of which he 
could take firm hold, his mind was filled with unsubstan¬ 
tial hopes and fears. Once, Kenyon had seemed to cut 
his life in marble; now he vaguely clutched at it, and 
found it vapor. 

In his unstrung and despondent mood, one trifling cir¬ 
cumstance affected him with an idle pang. The doves 
had at first been faithful to their lost mistress. They 
failed not to sit in a row upon her window-sill, or to alight 
on the shrine, or the church-angels, and on the roofs and 
portals of the neighboring houses, in evident expectation 
of her reappearance. After the second week, however, 
they began to take flight, and dropping off by pairs, be¬ 
took themselves to other dove-cotes. Only a single dove 
remained, and brooded drearily beneath the shrine. The 


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA’S DOVES 169 

flock, that had departed, were like the many hopes that 
had vanished from Kenyon’s heart; the one that still 
lingered, and looked so wretched —was it a Hope, or 
already a Despair ? 

In the street, one day, the sculptor met a priest of mild 
and venerable aspect; and as his mind dwelt continually 
upon Hilda, and was especially active in bringing up all 
incidents that had ever been connected with her, it imme¬ 
diately struck him that this was the very father with 
whom he had seen her at the confessional. Such trust 
did Hilda inspire in him, that Kenyon had never asked 
what was the subject of the communication between her¬ 
self and this old priest. He had no reason for imagin- 
ing that it could have any relation with her disappearance, 
so long subsequently but, being thus brought face to 
face with a personage, mysteriously associated, as he now 
remembered, with her whom he had lost, an impulse 
ran before his thoughts and led the sculptor to address 
him. 

It might be that the reverend kindliness of the old 
man’s expression took Kenyon’s heart by surprise; at all 
events, he spoke as if there were a recognized acquaint¬ 
anceship, and an object of mutual interest between 
them. 

“ She has gone from me, father,” said he. 

“ Of whom do you speak, my son ? ” inquired the 
priest. 

“Of that sweet girl,” answered Kenyon, “who knelt 
to you at the confessional. Surely, you remember her, 
among all the mortals to whose confessions you have 
listened! For she alone could have had no sins to 
reveal.” 

“Yes; I remember,” said the priest, with a gleam of 
recollection in his eyes. “ She was made to bear a 
miraculous testimony to the efficacy of the divine ordi¬ 
nances of the Church, by seizing forcibly upon one of 
them, and finding immediate relief from it, heretic though 
she was. It is my purpose to publish a brief narra¬ 
tive of this miracle, for the edification of mankind, in 
Latin, Italian, and English, from the printing-press of the 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


170 

Propaganda. Poor child ! Setting apart her heresy, she 
was spotless, as you say. And is she dead ? ” 

“ Heaven forbid, father! ” exclaimed Kenyon, shrink¬ 
ing back. “ But she has gone from me, I know not 
whither. It may be—yes, the idea seizes upon my 
mind — that what she revealed to you will suggest some 
clue to the mystery of her disappearance.” 

“ None, my son, none,” answered the priest, shaking 
his head; “ nevertheless, I bid you be of good cheer. 
That young maiden is not doomed to die a heretic. Who 
knows what the blessed Virgin may at this moment be 
doing for her soul! Perhaps when you next behold her, 
she will be clad in the shining white robe of the true 
faith.” 

This latter suggestion did not convey all the comfort 
which the old priest possibly intended by it; but he im¬ 
parted it to the sculptor, along with his blessing, as the 
two best things that he could bestow, and said nothing 
further, except to bid him farewell. 

When they had parted, however, the idea of Hilda’s 
conversion to Catholicism recurred to her lover’s mind, 
bringing with it certain reflections, that gave a new turn 
to his surmises about the mystery into which she had 
vanished. Not that he seriously apprehended — al¬ 
though the superabundance of her religious sentiment 
might mislead her for a moment — that the New Eng¬ 
land girl would permanently succumb to the scarlet 
superstitions which surrounded her in Italy. But the 
incident of the confessional — if known, as probably it 
was, to the eager propagandists who prowl about for 
souls, as cats to catch a mouse — would surely inspire 
the most confident expectations of bringing her over to 
the faith. With so pious an end in view, would Jesuiti¬ 
cal morality be shocked at the thought of kidnapping 
the mortal body, for the sake of the immortal spirit that 
might otherwise be lost forever ? Would not the kind 
old priest, himself, deem this to be infinitely the kindest 
service that he could perform for the stray lamb, who 
had so strangely sought his aid ? 

If these suppositions were well founded, Hilda was 


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA’S DOVES 171 


most likely a prisoner in one of the religious establish¬ 
ments that are so numerous in Rome. The idea, accord¬ 
ing to the aspect in which it was viewed, brought now a 
degree of comfort, and now an additional perplexity. 
On the one hand, Hilda was safe from any but spiritual 
assaults; on the other, where was the possibility of 
breaking through all those barred portals, and searching 
a thousand convent-cells, to set her free ? 

Kenyon, however, as it happened, was prevented from 
endeavoring to follow out this surmise, which only the 
state of hopeless uncertainty, that almost bewildered his 
reason, could have led him for a moment to entertain. 
A communication reached him by an unknown hand, in 
consequence of which, and within an hour after receiv¬ 
ing it, he took his way through one of the gates of 
Rome. 


CHAPTER XXI 


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA 

I T was a bright forenoon of February; a month in 
which the brief severity of a Roman winter is already 
past, and when violets and daisies begin to show them¬ 
selves in spots favored by the sun. The sculptor came 
out of the city by the gate of San Sebastiano, and walked 
briskly along the Appian Way. 

For the space of a mile or two beyond the gate, this 
ancient and famous road is as desolate and disagreeable 
as most of the other Roman avenues. It extends over 
small, uncomfortable paving-stones, between brick and 
plastered walls, which are very solidly constructed, and 
so high as almost to exclude a view of the surrounding 
country. The houses are of most uninviting aspect, 
neither picturesque, nor homelike and social; they have 
seldom or never a door opening on the wayside, but are 
accessible only from the rear, and frown inhospitably 
upon the traveller through iron-grated windows. Here 
and there appears a dreary inn, or a wine-shop, desig¬ 
nated by the withered bush beside the entrance, within 
which you discern a stone-built and sepulchral interior, 
where guests refresh themselves with sour bread and 
goats’ milk cheese, washed down with wine of dolorous 
acerbity. 

At frequent intervals along the roadside uprises the 
ruin of an ancient tomb. As they stand now, these 
structures are immensely high and broken mounds of 
conglomerated brick, stone, pebbles, and earth, all molten 
by time into a mass as solid and indestructible as if each 
tomb were composed of a single boulder of granite. 
When first erected, they were cased externally, no 
doubt, with slabs of polished marble, artfully wrought 
bas-reliefs, and all such suitable adornments, and were 

172 


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA 173 

rendered majestically beautiful by grand architectural 
designs. This antique splendor has long since been 
stolen from the dead, to decorate the palaces and 
churches of the living. Nothing remains to the dis¬ 
honored sepulchres, except their massiveness. 

Even the pyramids form hardly a stranger spectacle, 
or are more alien from human sympathies, than the 
tombs of the Appian Way, with their gigantic height, 
breadth, and solidity, defying time and the elements, 
and far too mighty to be demolished by an ordinary 
earthquake. Here you may see a modern dwelling, and 
a garden with its vines and olive-trees, perched on the 
lofty dilapidation of a tomb, which forms a precipice of 
fifty feet in depth on each of the four sides. There is a 
home on that funereal mound, where generations of chil¬ 
dren have been born, and successive lives been spent, 
undisturbed by the ghost of the stern Roman whose ashes 
were so preposterously burdened. Other sepulchres 
wear a crown of grass, shrubbery, and forest-trees, which 
throw out a broad sweep of branches, having had time, 
twice over, to be a thousand years of age. On one of 
them stands a tower, which, though immemorially more 
modern than the tomb, was itself built by immemorial 
hands, and is now rifted quite from top to bottom by a 
vast fissure of decay; the tomb-hillock, its foundation, 
being still as firm as ever, and likely to endure until the 
last trump shall rend it wide asunder, and summon forth 
its unknown dead. 

Yes; its unknown dead! For, except in one or two 
doubtful instances, these mountainous sepulchral edi¬ 
fices have not availed to keep so much as the bare name 
of an individual or a family from oblivion. Ambitious 
of everlasting remembrance as they were, the slumberers 
might just as well have gone quietly to rest, each in his 
pigeon-hole of a columbaria, or under his little green 
hillock, in a graveyard, without a headstone to mark the 
spot. It is rather satisfactory than otherwise, to think 
that all these idle pains have turned out so utterly abor¬ 
tive. 

About two miles, or more, from the city-gate, and 


*74 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


right upon the roadside, Kenyon passed an immense 
round pile, sepulchral in its original purposes, like those 
already mentioned. It was built of great blocks of 
hewn stone, on a vast, square foundation of rough, ag¬ 
glomerated material, such as composes the mass of all 
the other ruinous tombs. But whatever might be the 
cause, it was in a far better state of preservation than 
they. On its broad summit rose the battlements of a 
mediaeval fortress, out of the midst of which (so long 
since had time begun to crumble the supplemental 
structure, and cover it with soil, by means of wayside 
dust) grew trees, bushes, and thick festoons of ivy. 
This tomb of a woman had become the citadel and 
donjon-keep of a castle; and all the care that Cecilia 
Metella’s husband could bestow, to secure endless peace 
for her beloved relics, had only sufficed to make that 
handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles, long 
ages after her death. 

A little beyond this point, the sculptor turned aside 
from the Appian Way, and directed his course across 
the Campagna, guided by tokens that were obvious only 
to himself. On one side of him, but at a distance, the 
Claudian aqueduct was striding over fields and water¬ 
courses. Before him, many miles away, with a blue 
atmosphere between, rose the Alban hills, brilliantly 
silvered with snow and sunshine. 

He was not without a companion. A buffalo-calf, 
that seemed shy and sociable by the selfsame impulse, 
had begun to make acquaintance with him, from the 
moment when he left the road. This frolicsome crea¬ 
ture gambolled along, now before, now behind; stand¬ 
ing a moment to gaze at him, with wild, curious eyes, he 
leaped aside and shook his shaggy head, as Kenyon 
advanced too nigh ; then, after loitering in the rear, he 
came galloping up, like a charge of cavalry, but halted, 
all of a sudden, when the sculptor turned to look, and 
bolted across the Campagna, at the slightest signal of 
nearer approach. The young, sportive thing, Kenyon 
half fancied, was serving him as a guide, like the heifer 
that led Cadmus to the site of his destined city; for, in 


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA 175 

spite of a hundred vagaries, his general course was in 
the right direction, and along by several objects which 
the sculptor had noted as landmarks of his way. 

In this natural intercourse with a rude and healthy 
form of animal life, there was something that wonder¬ 
fully revived Kenyon’s spirits. The warm rays of the 
sun, too, were wholesome for him in body and soul; and 
so was a breeze that bestirred itself occasionally, as if 
for the sole purpose of breathing upon his cheek, and 
dying softly away, when he would fain have felt a little 
more decided kiss. This shy, but loving breeze re¬ 
minded him strangely of what Hilda’s deportment had 
sometimes been towards himself. 

The weather had very much to do, no doubt, with 
these genial and delightful sensations, that made the 
sculptor so happy with mere life, in spite of a head and 
heart full of doleful thoughts, anxieties, and fears, which 
ought in all reason to have depressed him. It was like 
no weather that exists anywhere, save in Paradise and 
in Italy; certainly not in America, where it is always 
too strenuous on the side either of heat or cold. Young 
as the season was, and wintry as it would have been 
under a more rigid sky, it resembled summer rather than 
what we New Englanders recognize in our idea of spring. 
But there was an indescribable something, sweet, fresh, 
and remotely affectionate, which the matronly summer 
loses, and which thrilled, and, as it were, tickled Ken¬ 
yon’s heart with a feeling partly of the senses, yet far 
more a spiritual delight. In a word, it was as if Hilda’s 
delicate breath were on his cheek. 

After walking at a brisk pace for about half an hour, 
he reached a spot where an excavation appeared to have 
been begun, at some not very distant period. There 
was a hollow space in the earth, looking exceedingly like 
a deserted cellar, being enclosed within old subterranean 
walls constructed of thin Roman bricks, and made acces¬ 
sible by a narrow flight of stone steps. A suburban 
villa had probably stood over this site, in the imperial 
days of Rome, and these might have been the ruins of 
a bathroom, or some other apartment that was required 


iy6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


to be wholly or partly under ground. A spade can 
scarcely be put into that soil, so rich in lost and forgot¬ 
ten things, without hitting upon some discovery which 
would attract all eyes, in any other land. If you dig 
but a little way, you gather bits of precious marble, 
coins, rings, and engraved gems; if you go deeper, you 
break into columbaria, or into sculptured and richly-fres¬ 
coed apartments that look like festive halls, but were 
only sepulchres. 

The sculptor descended into the cellar-like cavity, 
and sat down on a block of stone. His eagerness had 
brought him thither sooner than the appointed hour. 
The sunshine fell slantwise into the hollow, and hap¬ 
pened to be resting on what Kenyon at first took to be 
a shapeless fragment of stone, possibly marble, which 
was partly concealed by the crumbling down of earth. 

But his practised eye was soon aware of something 
artistic in this rude object. To relieve the anxious 
tedium of his situation, he cleared away some of the soil, 
which seemed to have fallen very recently, and discov¬ 
ered a headless figure of marble. It was earth-stained, 
as well it might be, and had a slightly-corroded surface, 
but at once impressed the sculptor as a Greek produc¬ 
tion, and wonderfully delicate and beautiful. The head 
was gone; both arms were broken off at the elbows. 
Protruding from the loose earth, however, Kenyon beheld 
the fingers of a marble hand ; it was still appended to its 
arm, and a little farther search enabled him to find the 
other. Placing these limbs in what the nice adjustment 
of the fractures proved to be their true position, the 
poor, fragmentary woman forthwith showed that she 
retained her modest instincts to the last. She had per¬ 
ished with them, and snatched them back at the moment 
of revival. For these long-buried hands immediately 
disposed themselves in the manner that nature prompts, 
as the antique artist knew, and as all the world has seen, 
in the Venus de’ Medici. 

“What a discovery is here ! ” thought Kenyon to him¬ 
self. “ I seek for Hilda, and find a marble woman! Is 
the omen good or ill ? ” 


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA 


*77 


In a corner of the excavation lay a small, round block 
of stone, much mcrusted with earth that had dried and 
hardened upon it. So, at least, you would have described 
this object, until the sculptor lifted it, turned it hither 
and thither in his hands, brushed off the clinging soil, 
and finally placed it on the slender neck of the newly- 
discovered statue. The effect was magical. It im¬ 
mediately lighted up and vivified the whole figure, 
endowing it with personality, soul, and intelligence. 
The beautiful Idea at once asserted its immortality, and 
converted that heap of forlorn fragments into a whole, 
as perfect to the mind, if not to the eye, as when the new 
marble gleamed with snowy lustre; nor was the impres¬ 
sion marred by the earth that still hung upon the ex¬ 
quisitely graceful limbs, and even filled the lovely 
crevice of the lips. Kenyon cleared it away from be¬ 
tween them, and almost deemed himself rewarded with 
a living smile. 

It was either the prototype or a better repetition of 
the Venus of the Tribune. But those who have been 
dissatisfied with the small head, the narrow, soulless 
face, the buttonhole eyelids, of that famous statue, and 
its mouth such as nature never moulded, should see the 
genial breadth of this far nobler and sweeter counte¬ 
nance. It is one of the few works of antique sculpture 
in which we recognize womanhood, and that, moreover, 
without prejudice to its divinity. 

Here, then, was a treasure for the sculptor to have 
found! How happened it to be lying there, beside its 
grave of twenty centuries ? Why were not the tidings 
of its discovery already noised abroad ? The world was 
richer than yesterday, by something far more precious 
than gold. Forgotten beauty had come back, as beauti¬ 
ful as ever; a goddess had risen from her long slumber, 
and was a goddess still.- Another cabinet in the Vatican 
was destined to shine as lustrously as that of the Apollo 
Belvidere; or, if the aged pope should resign his claim, 
an emperor would woo this tender marble, and win her 
as proudly as an imperial bride! 

Such were the thoughts with which Kenyon exagger- 


i 7 » 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


ated to himself the importance of the newly-discovered 
statue, and strove to feel at least a portion of the inter¬ 
est which this event would have inspired in him, a little 
while before. But, in reality, he found it difficult to 
fix his mind upon the subject. He could hardly, we 
fear, be reckoned a consummate artist, because there 
was something dearer to him than his art; and, by the 
greater strength of a human affection, the divine statue 
seemed to fall asunder again, and become only a heap 
of worthless fragments. 

While the sculptor sat listlessly gazing at it, there was 
a sound of small hoofs, clumsily galloping on the Cam- 
pagna; and, soon, his frisky acquaintance, the buffalo- 
calf, came and peeped over the edge of the excavation. 
Almost at the same moment, he heard voices, which 
approached nearer and nearer; a man’s voice, and a 
feminine one, talking the musical tongue of Italy. Be¬ 
sides the hairy visage of his four-footed friend, Kenyon 
now saw the figures of a peasant and a contadina, mak¬ 
ing gestures of salutation to him, on the opposite verge 
of the hollow space. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA 

T HEY descended into the excavation; a young 
peasant, in the short blue jacket, the smallclothes 
buttoned at the knee, and buckled shoes, that compose 
one of the ugliest dresses ever worn by man, except the 
wearer’s form have a grace which any garb, or the 
nudity of an antique statue, would equally set off; and, 
hand in hand with him, a village girl, in one of those 
brilliant costumes largely kindled up with scarlet, and 
decorated with gold embroidery, in which the contadinas 
array themselves on feast-days. But Kenyon was not 
deceived; he had recognized the voices of his friends, 
indeed, even before their disguised figures came be¬ 
tween him and the sunlight. Donatello was the peas¬ 
ant; the contadina, with the airy smile, half mirthful, 
though it shone out of melancholy eyes, — was Miriam. 

They both greeted the sculptor with a familiar kind¬ 
ness which reminded him of the days when Hilda and 
they and he had lived so happily together, before the 
mysterious adventure of the catacomb. What a succes¬ 
sion of sinister events had followed one spectral figure 
out of that gloomy labyrinth. 

“ It is carnival time, you know,” said Miriam, as if in 
explanation of Donatello’s and her own costume. “ Do 
you remember how merrily we spent the carnival, last 
year ? ” 

“ It seems many years ago,” replied Kenyon. “We 
are all so changed ! ” 

When individuals approach one another with deep 
purposes on both sides, they seldom come at once to 
the matter which they have most at heart. They dread 
the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it. A 

179 


i8o 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


natural impulse leads them to steal gradually onward, 
hiding themselves, as it were, behind a closer, and still 
a closer topic, until they stand face to face with the true 
point of interest. Miriam was conscious of this impulse, 
and partially obeyed it. 

“ So your instincts as a sculptor have brought you into 
the presence of our newly-discovered statue,” she ob¬ 
served. “ Is it not beautiful ? A far truer image of 
immortal womanhood than the poor little damsel at 
Florence, world-famous though she be.” 

“ Most beautiful,” said Kenyon, casting an indifferent 
glance at the Venus. “The time has been when the 
sight of this statue would have been enough to make 
the day memorable.” 

“And will it not do so, now?” Miriam asked. “I 
fancied so, indeed, when we discovered it two days ago. 
It is Donatello’s prize. We were sitting here together, 
planning an interview with you, when his keen eyes 
detected the fallen goddess, almost entirely buried under 
that heap of earth, which the clumsy excavators showered 
down upon her, I suppose. We congratulated ourselves, 
chiefly for your sake. The eyes of us three are the only 
ones to which she has yet revealed herself. Does it not 
frighten you a little, like the apparition of a lovely woman 
that lived of old, and has long lain in the grave ? ” 

“Ah, Miriam! I cannot respond to you,” said the 
sculptor, with irrepressible impatience. “ Imagination 
and the love of art have both died out of me.” 

“ Miriam,” interposed Donatello, with gentle gravity, 
“ why should we keep our friend in suspense ? We know 
what anxiety he feels. Let us give him what intelligence 
we can.” 

“You are so direct and immediate, my beloved friend!” 
answered Miriam, with an unquiet smile. “ There are 
several reasons why I should like to play round this 
matter a little while, and cover it with fanciful thoughts, 
as we strew a grave with flowers.” 

“ A grave ! ” exclaimed the sculptor. 

“ No grave in which your heart need be buried,” she 
replied; “ you have no such calamity to dread. But I 


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA 181 


linger and hesitate, because every word I speak brings 
me nearer to a crisis from which I shrink. Ah, Dona¬ 
tello ! let us live a little longer the life of these last few 
days ! It is so bright, so airy, so childlike, so without 
either past or future ! Here, on the wild Campagna, you 
seem to have found, both for yourself and me, the life 
that belonged to you in early youth; the sweet, irre¬ 
sponsible life which you inherited from your mythic 
ancestry, the Fauns of Monte Beni. Our stern and 
black reality will come upon us speedily enough. But, 
first, a brief time more of this strange happiness.” 

“ I dare not linger upon it,” answered Donatello, with 
an expression that reminded the sculptor of the gloomiest 
days of his remorse at Monte Beni. “ I dare to be so 
happy as you have seen me, only because I have felt the 
time to be so brief.” 

“ One day, then ! ” pleaded Miriam. “ One more day 
in the wild freedom of this sweet-scented air.” 

“Well, one more day,” said Donatello, smiling; and 
his smile touched Kenyon with a pathos beyond words, 
there being gayety and sadness both melted into it; 
“ but here is Hilda’s friend, and our own. Comfort him, 
at least, and set his heart at rest, since you have it partly 
in your power.” 

“ Ah, surely he might endure his pangs a little longer! ” 
cried Miriam, turning to Kenyon with a tricksy, fitful 
kind of mirth, that served to hide some solemn necessity, 
too sad and serious to be looked at in its naked aspect. 
“ You love us both, I think, and will be content to suffer 
for our sakes, one other day. Do I ask too much ? 

“Tell me of Hilda,” replied the sculptor; “tell me 
only that she is safe, and keep back what else you 
will.” 

“ Hilda is safe,” said Miriam. “ There is a Providence 
purposely for Hilda, as I remember to have told you 
long ago. But a great trouble — an evil deed, let us 
acknowledge it — has spread out its dark branches so 
widely, that the shadow falls on innocence as well as 
guilt. There was one slight link that connected your 
sweet Hilda with a crime which it was her unhappy for- 


I 82 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


tune to witness, but of which I need not say she was as 
guiltless as the angels that looked out of heaven, and 
saw it too. No matter, now, what the consequence has 
been. You shall have your lost Hilda back, and — who 
knows? — perhaps tenderer than she was.” 

“ But when will she return ? ” persisted the sculptor; 
“tell me the when, and where, and how! ” 

“ A little patience. Do not press me so,” said Miriam; 
and again Kenyon was struck by the spritelike, fitful 
characteristic of her manner, and a sort of hysteric 
gayety, which seemed to be a will-o’-the-wisp from a 
sorrow stagnant at her heart. “ You have more time to 
spare than I. First, listen to something that I have to 
tell. We will talk of Hilda by and by.” 

Then Miriam spoke of her own life, and told facts that 
threw a gleam of light over many things which had per¬ 
plexed the sculptor in all his previous knowledge of her. 
She described herself as springing from English parent¬ 
age, on the mother’s side, but with a vein, likewise, of 
Jewish blood; yet connected, through her father, with 
one of those few princely families of southern Italy, 
which still retain a great wealth and influence. And 
she revealed a name, at which her auditor started, and 
grew pale; for it was one that, only a few years before, 
had been familiar to the world, in connection with a 
mysterious and terrible event. The reader — if he think 
it worth while to recall some of the strange incidents 
which have been talked of, and forgotten, within no long 
time past — will remember Miriam’s name. 

“You shudder at me, I perceive,” said Miriam, sud¬ 
denly interrupting her narrative. 

“No; you were innocent,” replied the sculptor. “I 
shudder at the fatality that seems to haunt your foot¬ 
steps, and throws a shadow of crime about your path, 
you being guiltless.” 

“There was such a fatality,” said Miriam; “yes; 
the shadow fell upon me, innocent, but I went astray 
in it, and wandered — as Hilda could tell you — into 
crime.” 

She went on to say, that, while yet a child, she had 


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA 183 

lost her English mother. From a very early period of 
her life, there had been a contract of betrothal between 
herself and a certain marchese, the representative of 
another branch of her paternal house, — a family 
arrangement between two persons of disproportioned 
ages, and in which feeling went for nothing. Most 
Italian girls of noble rank would have yielded themselves 
to such a marriage, as an affair of course. But there 
was something in Miriam’s blood, in her mixed race, in 
her recollections of her mother, — some characteristic, 
finally, in her own nature, — which had given her free¬ 
dom of thought, and force of will, and made this pre¬ 
arranged connection odious to her. Moreover, the 
character of her destined husband would have been 
a sufficient and insuperable objection; for it betrayed 
traits so evil, so treacherous, so wild, and yet so 
strangely subtle, as could only be accounted for by the 
insanity which often develops itself in old, close-kept 
races of men, when long unmixed with newer blood. 
Reaching the age when the marriage contract should 
have been fulfilled, Miriam had utterly repudiated it. 

Some time afterwards had occurred that terrible 
event to which Miriam had alluded, when she revealed 
her name; an event, the frightful and mysterious cir¬ 
cumstances of which will recur to many minds, but of 
which few or none can have found for themselves a sat¬ 
isfactory explanation. It only concerns the present nar¬ 
rative, inasmuch as the suspicion of being at least an 
accomplice in the crime fell darkly and directly upon 
Miriam herself. 

“ But you know that I am innocent! ” she cried, 
interrupting herself again, and looking Kenyon in the 
face. 

“ I know it by my deepest consciousness,” he an¬ 
swered; “and I know it by Hilda’s trust and entire 
affection, which you never could have won had you 
been capable of guilt.” 

“That is sure ground, indeed, for pronouncing me 
innocent,” said Miriam, with the tears gushing into her 
eyes. “ Yet I have since become a horror to your saint- 


184 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


like Hilda, by a crime which she herself saw me help to 
perpetrate! ” 

She proceeded with her story. The great influence 
of her family connections had shielded her from some 
of the consequences of her imputed guilt. But, in her 
despair, she had fled from home, and had surrounded 
her flight with such circumstances as rendered it the 
most probable conclusion that she had committed sui¬ 
cide. Miriam, however, was not of the feeble nature 
which takes advantage of that obvious and poor re¬ 
source in earthly difficulties. She flung herself upon 
the world, and speedily created a new sphere, in which 
Hilda’s gentle purity, the sculptor’s sensibility, clear 
thought, and genius, and Donatello’s genial simplicity, 
had given her almost her first experience of happiness. 
Then came that ill-omened adventure of the catacomb. 
The spectral figure which she encountered there was 
the evil fate that had haunted her through life. 

Looking back upon what* had happened, Miriam 
observed, she now considered him a madman. Insan¬ 
ity must have been mixed up with his original composi¬ 
tion, and developed by those very acts of depravity 
which it suggested, and still more intensified by the 
remorse that ultimately followed them. Nothing was 
stranger in his dark career, than the penitence which 
often seemed to go hand in hand with crime. Since his 
death, she had ascertained that it finally led him to a 
convent, where his severe and self-inflicted penance had 
even acquired him the reputation of unusual sanctity, 
and had been the cause of his enjoying greater freedom 
than is commonly allowed to monks. 

“ Need I tell you more ? ” asked Miriam, after pro¬ 
ceeding thus far. “ It is still a dim and dreary mystery, 
a gloomy twilight into which I guide you; but possibly 
you may catch a glimpse of much that I myself can ex¬ 
plain only by conjecture. At all events, you can com¬ 
prehend what my situation must have been, after that 
fatal interview in the catacomb. My persecutor had 
gone thither for penance, but followed me forth with 
fresh impulses to crime. He had me in his power. 


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA 185 

Mad as he was, and wicked as he was, with one word 
he could have blasted me in the belief of all the world. 
In your belief too, and Hilda’s! Even Donatello would 
have shrunk from me with horror! ” 

“Never,” said Donatello; “my instinct would have 
known you innocent.” 

“Hilda and Donatello and myself — we three would 
have acquitted you,” said Kenyon, “let the world say 
what it might. Ah, Miriam, you should have told us 
this sad story sooner ! ” 

“ I thought often of revealing it to you,” answered 
Miriam; “on one occasion, especially,—it was after 
you had shown me your Cleopatra; it seemed to leap 
out of my heart, and got as far as my very lips. But 
finding you cold to accept my confidence, I thrust it 
back again. Had I obeyed my first impulse, all would 
have turned out differently.” 

“And Hilda!” resumed the sculptor. “What can 
have been her connection with these dark incidents ? ” 

“ She will, doubtless, tell you with her own lips,” re¬ 
plied Miriam. “ Through sources of information which 
I possess in Rome, I can assure you of her safety. In 
two days more — by the help of the special Providence 
that, as I love to tell you, watches over Hilda — she 
shall rejoin you.” 

“ Still two days more ! ” murmured the sculptor. 

“ Ah, you are cruel now! More cruel than you know! ” 
exclaimed Miriam, with another gleam of that fantastic, 
fitful gayety, which had more than once marked her man¬ 
ner, during this interview. “ Spare your poor friends ! ” 

“ I know not what you mean, Miriam,” said Kenyon. 

“ No matter,” she replied ; “ you will understand here¬ 
after. But could you think it ? Here is Donatello haunted 
with strange remorse, and an unmitigable resolve to ob¬ 
tain what he deems justice upon himself. He fancies, 
with a kind of direct simplicity, which I have vainly 
tried to combat, that, when a wrong has been done, the 
doer is bound to submit himself to whatsoever tribunal 
takes cognizance of such things, and abide its judg¬ 
ment. I have assured him that there is no such thing 


186 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


as earthly justice, and especially none here, under the 
head of Christendom.” 

“ We will not argue the point again,” said Donatello, 
smiling. “ I have no head for argument, but only a 
sense, an impulse, an instinct, I believe, which sometimes 
leads me right. But why do we talk now of what may 
make us sorrowful ? There are still two days more. 
Let us be happy ! ” 

It appeared to Kenyon that since he last saw Dona¬ 
tello, some of the sweet and delightful characteristics of 
the antique Faun had returned to him. There were 
slight, careless graces, pleasant and simple peculiarities, 
that had been obliterated by the heavy grief through 
which he was passing, at Monte Beni, and out of which 
he had hardly emerged, when the sculptor parted with 
Miriam and him beneath the bronze pontiff’s outstretched 
hand. These happy blossoms had now reappeared. A 
playfulness came out of his heart and glimmered like 
fire-light in his actions, alternating, or even closely inter¬ 
mingled, with profound sympathy and serious thought. 

“ Is he not beautiful ? ” said Miriam, watching the 
sculptor’s eye as it dwelt admiringly on Donatello. “ So 
changed, yet still, in a deeper sense, so much the same! 
He has travelled in a circle, as all things heavenly and 
earthly do, and now comes back to his original self, with 
an inestimable treasure of improvement won from an 
experience of pain. How wonderful is this! I tremble 
at my own thoughts, yet must needs probe them to their 
depths. Was the crime — in which he and I were wed¬ 
ded — was it a blessing, in that strange disguise ? Was 
it a means of education, bringing a simple and imperfect 
nature to a point of feeling and intelligence which it 
could have reached under no other discipline ? ” 

“You stir up deep and perilous matter, Miriam,” 
replied Kenyon. “ I dare not follow you into the un¬ 
fathomable abysses whither you are tending.” 

“ Yet there is a pleasure in them ! I delight to brood 
on the verge of this great mystery,” returned she. “The 
story of the fall of man ! Is it not repeated in our 
romance of Monte Beni ? And may we follow the 


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA 187 

analogy yet farther ? Was that very sin — into which 
Adam precipitated himself and all his race — was it the 
destined means by which, over a long pathway of toil 
and sorrow, we are to attain a higher, brighter, and pro¬ 
founder happiness, than our last birthright gave ? Will 
not this idea account for the permitted existence of sin, 
as no other theory can ? ” 

“ It is too dangerous, Miriam ! I cannot follow you ! ” 
repeated the sculptor. “Mortal man has no right to 
tread on the ground where you now set your feet.” 

“ Ask Hilda what she thinks of it,” said Miriam, with 
a thoughtful smile. “ At least, she might conclude that 
sin — which man chose instead of good — has been so 
beneficently handled by omniscience and omnipotence, 
that, whereas our dark enemy sought to destroy us by 
it, it has really become an instrument most effective in 
the education of intellect and soul.” 

Miriam paused a little longer among these meditations, 
which the sculptor rightly felt to be so perilous; she 
then pressed his hand, in token of farewell. 

“ The day after to-morrow,” said she, “an hour before 
sunset, go to the Corso, and stand in front of the fifth 
house on your left, beyond the Antonine column. You 
will learn tidings of a friend.” 

Kenyon would have besought her for more definite 
intelligence, but she shook her head, put her finger on 
her lips, and turned away with an illusive smile. The 
fancy impressed him, that she, too, like Donatello, had 
reached a wayside paradise, in their mysterious life- 
journey, where they both threw down the burden of the 
before and after, and, except for this interview with 
himself, were happy in the flitting moment. To-day, 
Donatello was the sylvan Faun; to-day, Miriam was his 
fit companion, a Nymph of grove or fountain; to¬ 
morrow,— a remorseful man and woman, linked by a 
marriage-bond of crime, — they would set forth towards 
an inevitable goal. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


A SCENE IN THE CORSO 

O N the appointed afternoon, Kenyon failed not to 
make his appearance in the Corso, and at an hour 
much earlier than Miriam had named. 

It was carnival time. The merriment of this famous 
festival was in full progress ; and the stately avenue of 
the Corso was peopled with hundreds of fantastic shapes, 
some of which probably represented the mirth of ancient 
times, surviving through all manner of calamity, ever 
since the days of the Roman empire. For a few after¬ 
noons of early spring, this mouldy gayety strays into 
the sunshine; all the remainder of the year, it seems to 
be shut up in the catacombs or some other sepulchral 
storehouse of the past. 

Besides these hereditary forms, at which a hundred 
generations have laughed, there were others of modern 
date, the humorous effluence of the day that was now 
passing. It is a day, however, and an age, that appears 
to be remarkably barren, when compared with the pro¬ 
lific originality of former times, in productions of a 
scenic and ceremonial character, whether grave or gay. 
To own the truth, the carnival is alive, this present year, 
only because it has existed through centuries gone by. 
It is traditionary, not actual. If decrepit and melancholy 
Rome smiles, and laughs broadly, indeed, at carnival 
time, it is not in the old simplicity of real mirth, but with a 
half-conscious effort, like our self-deceptive pretence of 
jollity at a threadbare joke. Whatever it may once have 
been, it is now but a narrow stream of merriment, 
noisy of set purpose, running along the middle of the 
Corso, through the solemn heart of the decayed city, 
without extending its shallow influence on either side. 

188 


A SCENE IN THE CORSO 189 

Nor, even within its own limits, does it affect the mass 
of spectators, but only a comparatively few, in street 
and balcony, who carry on the warfare of nosegays and 
counterfeit sugar-plums. The populace look on with 
staid composure ; the nobility and priesthood take little 
or no part in the matter; and, but for the hordes of 
Anglo-Saxons who annually take up the flagging mirth, 
the carnival might long ago have been swept away, with 
the snow-drifts of confetti that whiten all the pavement. 

No doubt, however, the worn-out festival is still new to 
the youthful and light-hearted, who make the worn-out 
world itself as fresh as Adam found it on his first fore¬ 
noon in Paradise. It may be only age and care that 
chill the life out of its grotesque and airy riot, with the 
impertinence of their cold criticism. 

Kenyon, though young, had care enough within his 
breast to render the carnival the emptiest of mockeries. 
Contrasting the stern anxiety of his present mood with 
the frolic spirit of the preceding year, he fancied that so 
much trouble had, at all events, brought wisdom in its 
train. But there is a wisdom that looks grave, and sneers 
at merriment; and again a deeper wisdom, that stoops to 
be gay as often as occasion serves, and oftenest avails 
itself of shallow and trifling grounds of mirth; because, 
if we wait for more substantial ones, we seldom can be 
gay at all. Therefore, had it been possible, Kenyon 
would have done well to mask himself in some wild, 
hairy visage, and plunge into the throng of other mask¬ 
ers, as at the carnival before. Then, Donatello had 
danced along the Corso in all the equipment of a Faun, 
doing the part with wonderful felicity of execution, and 
revealing furry ears which looked absolutely real; and 
Miriam had been alternately, a lady of the antique 
regime, in powder and brocade, and the prettiest peas¬ 
ant-girl of the Campagna, in the gayest of costumes; 
while Hilda, sitting demurely in a balcony, had hit the 
sculptor with a single rosebud, — so sweet and fresh a 
bud that he knew at once whose hand had flung it. 

These were all gone; all those dear friends whose 
sympathetic mirth had made him gay. Kenyon felt as 


190 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


if an interval of many years had passed since the last 
carnival. He had grown old, the nimble jollity was 
tame, and the maskers dull and heavy; the Corso was 
but a narrow and shabby street of decaying palaces; 
and even the long, blue streamer of Italian sky, above 
it, not half so brightly blue as formerly. 

Yet, if he could have beheld the scene with his clear, 
natural eyesight, he might still have found both merri¬ 
ment and splendor in it. Everywhere, and all day long, 
there had been tokens of the festival, in the baskets 
brimming over with bouquets, for sale at the street- 
corners, or borne about on people’s heads ; while bushels 
upon bushels of variously colored confetti were dis¬ 
played, looking just like veritable sugar-plums; so that 
a stranger would have imagined that the whole com¬ 
merce and business of stern old Rome lay in flowers and 
sweets. And, now, in the sunny afternoon, there could 
hardly be a spectacle more picturesque than the vista of 
that noble street, stretching into the interminable dis¬ 
tance between two rows of lofty edifices, from every 
window of which, and many a balcony, flaunted gay and 
gorgeous carpets, bright silks, scarlet cloths with rich 
golden fringes, and Gobelin tapestry, still lustrous with 
varied hues, though the product of antique looms. Each 
separate palace had put on a gala-dress, and looked fes¬ 
tive for the occasion, whatever sad or guilty secret it 
might hide within. Every window, moreover, was alive 
with the faces of women, rosy girls, and children, all 
kindled into brisk and mirthful expression by the inci¬ 
dents in the street below. In the balconies that pro¬ 
jected along the palace fronts, stood groups of ladies, 
some beautiful, all richly dressed, scattering forth their 
laughter, shrill, yet sweet, and the musical babble of 
their voices, to thicken into an airy tumult over the 
heads of common mortals. 

All these innumerable eyes looked down into the street, 
the whole capacity of which was thronged with festal 
figures, in such fantastic variety that it had taken cen¬ 
turies to contrive them; and through the midst of the 
mad, merry stream of human life, rolled slowly onward 


A SCENE IN THE CORSO 


I 9 I 

a never-ending procession of all the vehicles in Rome, 
from the ducal carriage, with the powdered coachman 
high in front, and the three golden lackeys clinging in 
the rear, down to the rustic cart drawn by its single 
donkey. Among this various crowd, at windows and in 
balconies, in cart, cab, barouche, or gorgeous equipage, 
or bustling to and fro afoot, there was a sympathy of 
nonsense; a true and genial brotherhood and sister¬ 
hood, based on the honest purpose — and a wise one, 
too — of being foolish, all together. The sport of man¬ 
kind, like its deepest earnest, is a battle ; so these festive 
people fought one another with an ammunition of sugar¬ 
plums and flowers. 

Not that they were veritable sugar-plums, however, 
but something that resembled them only as the apples 
of Sodom look like better fruit. They were concocted 
mostly of lime, with a grain of oat or some other worth¬ 
less kernel in the midst. Besides the hail-storm of con¬ 
fetti, the combatants threw handfuls of flour or lime into 
the air, where it hung like smoke over a battle-field, or, 
descending, whitened a black coat or priestly robe, and 
made the curly locks of youth irreverently hoary. 

At the same time with this acrid contest of quicklime, 
which caused much effusion of tears from suffering eyes, 
a gentler warfare of flowers was carried on, principally 
between knights and ladies. Originally, no doubt, when 
this pretty custom was first instituted, it may have had a 
sincere and modest import. Each youth and damsel, 
gathering bouquets of field flowers, or the sweetest and 
fairest that grew in their own gardens, all fresh and vir¬ 
gin blossoms — flung them, with true aim, at the one, or 
few, whom they regarded with a sentiment of shy par¬ 
tiality at least, if not with love. Often, the lover in the 
Corso may thus have received from his bright mistress, 
in her father’s princely balcony, the first sweet intima¬ 
tion that his passionate glances had not struck against a 
heart of marble. What more appropriate mode of sug¬ 
gesting her tender secret could a maiden find, than by 
the soft hit of a rosebud against a young man’s cheek. 

This was the pastime and the earnest of a more inno- 


192 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


cent and homelier age. Nowadays, the nosegays are 
gathered and tied up by sordid hands, chiefly of the most 
ordinary flowers, and are sold along the Corso, at mean 
price, yet more than such venal things are worth. Buy¬ 
ing a basketful, you find them miserably wilted, as if 
they had flown hither and thither through two or three 
carnival days already; muddy, too, having been fished 
up from the pavement, where a hundred feet have 
trampled on them. You may see throngs of men and 
boys who thrust themselves beneath the horses’ hoofs 
to gather up bouquets that were aimed amiss from bal¬ 
cony and carriage; these they sell again, and yet once 
more, and ten times over, defiled as they all are with 
the wicked filth of Rome. 

Such are the flowery favors — the fragrant bunches 
of sentiment—that fly between cavalier and dame, and 
back again, from one end of the Corso to the other. 
Perhaps they may symbolize, more aptly than was in¬ 
tended, the poor, battered, wilted hearts of those who 
fling them; hearts which — crumpled and crushed by 
former possessors, and stained with various mishap — 
have been passed from hand to hand, along the muddy 
street-way of life, instead of being treasured in one 
faithful bosom. 

These venal and polluted flowers, therefore, and those 
deceptive bonbons, are types of the small reality^that 
still subsists in the observance of the carnivgUY et the 
government seemed to imagine that there might be ex¬ 
citement enough — wild mirth, perchance, following its 
antics beyond law, and frisking from frolic into earnest 
— to render it expedient to guard the Corso with an 
imposing show of military power. Besides the ordinary 
force of gendarmes, a strong patrol of Papal dragoons, 
in steel helmets and white cloaks, were stationed at 
all the street-corners. Detachments of French infantry 
stood by their stacked muskets in the Piazza del Popolo, 
at one extremity of the course, and before the palace of 
the Austrian embassy, at the other, and by the column 
of Antoninus, midway between. Had that chained tiger- 
cat, the Roman populace, shown only so much as the 


A SCENE IN THE CORSO 


l 93 


tips of his claws, the sabres would have been flashing 
and the bullets whistling, in right earnest, among the 
combatants who now pelted one another with mock 
sugar-plums and wilted flowers. 

But, to do the Roman people justice, they were re¬ 
strained by a better safeguard than the sabre or the 
bayonet: it was their own gentle courtesy, which im¬ 
parted a sort ^f sacredness to the hereditary festival. 
At first sight of a spectacle so fantastic and extravagant, 
a cool observer might have imagined the whole town 
gone mad; but, in the end, he would see that all this 
apparently unbounded license is kept strictly within a 
limit of its own; he would admire a people who can 
so freely let loose their mirthful propensities, while 
muzzling those fiercer ones that tend to mischief. Every¬ 
body seemed lawless ; nobody was rude. If any reveller 
overstepped the mark, it was sure to be no Roman, but 
an Englishman or an American; and even the rougher 
play of this Gothic race was still softened by the insen¬ 
sible influence of a moral atmosphere more delicate, in 
some respects, than we breathe at home. Not that, 
after all, we like the fine Italian spirit better than our 
own; popular rudeness is sometimes the symptom of 
rude moral health. But, where a carnival is in question, 
it would probably pass off more decorously, as well as 
more airily and delightfully, in Rome, than in any 
Anglo-Saxon city. 

When Kenyon emerged from a side-lane into the 
Corso, the mirth was at its height. Out of the seclu¬ 
sion of his own feelings, he looked forth at the tapes¬ 
tried and damask-curtained palaces, the slow-moving, 
double line of carriages, and the motley maskers that 
swarmed on foot, as if he were gazing through the iron 
lattice of a prison-window. So remote from the scene 
were his sympathies, that it affected him like a thin 
dream, through the dim, extravagant material of which 
he could discern more substantial objects, while too 
much under its control to start forth broad awake. 
Just at that moment, too, there came another spectacle, 
making its way right through the masquerading throng. 


i 9 4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


It was, first and foremost, a full band of martial music, 
reverberating, in that narrow and confined, though stately 
avenue, between the walls of the lofty palaces, and roar¬ 
ing upward to the sky, with melody so powerful that it 
almost grew to discord. Next came a body of cavalry 
and mounted gendarmes, with great display of military 
pomp. They were escorting a long train of equipages, 
each and all of which shone as gorgeously as Cinderella’s 
coach, with paint and gilding. Like that, too, they were 
provided with coachmen, of mighty breadth, and enor¬ 
mously tall footmen, in immense, powdered wigs, and 
all the splendor of gold-laced, three-cornered hats, and 
embroidered silk coats and breeches. By the old-fash¬ 
ioned magnificence of this procession, it might worthily 
have included his Holiness in person, with a suite of 
attendant Cardinals, if those sacred dignitaries would 
kindly have lent their aid to heighten the frolic of the 
carnival. But, for all its show of a martial escort, and 
its antique splendor of costume, it was but a train of 
the municipal authorities of Rome, — illusive shadows, 
every one, and among them a phantom, styled the Roman 
Senator, — proceeding to the Capitol. 

The riotous interchange of nosegays and confetti was 
partially suspended, while the procession passed. One 
well-directed shot, however, — it was a double handful 
of powdered lime, flung by an impious New Englander, 
— hit the coachman of the Roman Senator full in the 
face, and hurt his dignity amazingly. It appeared to 
be his opinion, that the Republic was again crumbling 
into ruin, and that the dust of it now filled his nostrils; 
though, in fact, it would hardly be distinguished from 
the official powder with which he was already plentifully 
bestrewn. 

While the sculptor, with his dreamy eyes, was taking 
idle note of this trifling circumstance, two figures passed 
before him, hand in hand. The countenance of each 
was covered with an impenetrable black mask; but one 
seemed a peasant of the Campagna; the other, a con- 
tadina in her holiday costume. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL 

T HE crowd and confusion, just at that moment, hin¬ 
dered the sculptor from pursuing these figures, — 
the peasant and contadina, — who, indeed, were but two 
of a numerous tribe that thronged the Corso, in similar 
costume. As soon as he could squeeze a passage, Ken¬ 
yon tried to follow in their footsteps, but quickly lost 
sight of them, and was thrown off the track by stopping 
to examine various groups of masqueraders, in which he 
fancied the objects of his search to be included. He 
found many a sallow peasant or herdsman of the Cam- 
pagna, in such a dress as Donatello wore, many a con¬ 
tadina, too, brown, broad, and sturdy, in her finery of 
scarlet, and decked out with gold or coral beads, a pair 
of heavy ear-rings, a curiously wrought cameo or mosaic 
brooch, and a silver comb or long stiletto among her 
glossy hair. But those shapes of grace and beauty, 
which he sought, had vanished. 

As soon as the procession of the Senator had passed, 
the merry-makers resumed their antics with fresh spirit, 
and the artillery of bouquets and sugar-plums, suspended 
for a moment, began anew. The sculptor himself being 
probably the most anxious and unquiet spectator there, 
was especially a mark for missiles from all quarters, and 
for the practical jokes which the license of the carnival 
permits. In fact, his sad and contracted brow so ill 
accorded with the scene, that the revellers might be 
pardoned for thus using him as the butt of their idle 
mirth, since he evidently could not otherwise contribute 
to it. 

Fantastic figures, with bulbous heads, the circumfer- 
i95 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


196 

ence of a bushel, grinned enormously in his face. Harle¬ 
quins struck him with their wooden swords, and appeared 
to expect his immediate transformation into some jollier 
shape. A little, long-tailed, horned fiend sidled up to 
him, and suddenly blew at him through a tube, envelop¬ 
ing our poor friend in a whole harvest of winged seeds. 
A biped, with an ass’s snout, brayed close to his ear, end¬ 
ing his discordant uproar with a peal of human laughter. 
Five strapping damsels — so, at least, their petticoats be¬ 
spoke them, in spite of an awful freedom in the flourish 
of their legs — joined hands, and danced around him, 
inviting him by their gestures, to perform a hornpipe in 
the midst. Released from these gay persecutors, a clown 
in motley rapped him on the back with a blown bladder, 
in which a handful of dried peas rattled horribly. 

Unquestionably, a care-stricken mortal has no business 
abroad, when the rest of mankind are at high carnival; 
they must either pelt him and absolutely martyr him with 
jests, and finally bury him beneath the aggregate heap; 
or else the potency of his darker mood, because the tis¬ 
sue of human life takes a sad dye more readily than a 
gay one, will quell their holiday humors, like the aspect 
of a death’s-head at a banquet. Only that we know 
Kenyon’s errand, we could hardly forgive him for ven¬ 
turing into the Corso with that troubled face. 

Even yet, his merry martyrdom was not half over. 
There came along a gigantic female figure, seven feet 
high, at least, and taking up a third of the street’s breadth 
with the preposterously swelling sphere of her crinoline 
skirts. Singling out the sculptor, she began to make 
a ponderous assault upon his heart, throwing amorous 
glances at him out of her great goggle-eyes, offering him 
a vast bouquet of sunflowers and nettles, and soliciting 
his pity by all sorts of pathetic and passionate dumb- 
show. Her suit meeting no favor, the rejected Titaness 
made a gesture of despair and rage; then suddenly draw¬ 
ing a huge pistol, she took aim right at the obdurate 
sculptor’s breast, and pulled the trigger. The shot took 
effect, for the abominable plaything went off by a spring, 
like a boy’s popgun, covering Kenyon with a cloud of 


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL 197 

lime-dust, under shelter of which the revengeful damsel 
strode away. 

Hereupon, a whole host of absurd figures surrounded 
him, pretending to sympathize in his mishap. Clowns and 
parti-colored harlequins; orang-outangs; bear-headed, 
bull-headed, and dog-headed individuals; faces that 
would have been human, but for their enormous noses; 
one terrific creature, with a visage right in the centre of 
his breast; and all other imaginable kinds of monstrosity 
and exaggeration. These apparitions appeared to be 
investigating the case, after the fashion of a coroner’s 
jury, poking their pasteboard countenances close to the 
sculptor’s with an unchangeable grin, that gave still more 
ludicrous effect to the comic alarm and sorrow of their 
gestures. Just then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and 
rusty gown, with an inkhorn at his buttonhole, and a pen 
behind his ear; he announced himself as a notary, and 
offered to make the last will and testament of the assas¬ 
sinated man. This solemn duty, however, was inter¬ 
rupted by a surgeon, who brandished a lancet, three 
feet long, and proposed to him to let him take blood. 

The affair was so like a feverish dream, that Kenyon 
resigned himself to let it take its course. Fortunately, 
the humors of the carnival pass from one absurdity to 
another, without lingering long enough on any, to wear 
out even the slightest of them. The passiveness of his 
demeanor afforded too little scope for such broad merri¬ 
ment as the masqueraders sought. In a few moments 
they vanished from him, as dreams and spectres do, 
leaving him at liberty to pursue his quest, with no im¬ 
pediment except the crowd that blocked up the footway. 

He had not gone far when the peasant and the con- 
tadina met him. They were still hand in hand, and 
appeared to be straying through the grotesque and 
animated scene, taking as little part in it as himself. 
It might be because he recognized them, and knew 
their solemn secret, that the sculptor fancied a melan¬ 
choly emotion to be expressed by the very movement 
and attitudes of these two figures; and even the grasp 
of their hands, uniting them so closely, seemed to set 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


them in a sad remoteness from the world at which they 
gazed. 

“ I rejoice to meet you,” said Kenyon. 

But they looked at him through the eye-holes of their 
black masks without answering a word. 

“ Pray give me a little light on the matter which I 
have so much at heart,” said he; “if you know any¬ 
thing of Hilda, for Heaven’s sake, speak! ” 

Still, they were silent; and the sculptor began to im¬ 
agine that he must have mistaken the identity of these 
figures, there being such a multitude in similar costume. 
Yet there was no other Donatello; no other Miriam. 
He felt, too, that spiritual certainty which impresses us 
with the presence of our friends, apart from any testi¬ 
mony of the senses. 

“You are unkind,” resumed he,— “knowing the 
anxiety which oppresses me, — not to relieve it, if in 
your power.” 

The reproach evidently had its effect; for the conta- 
dina now spoke, and it was Miriam’s voice. 

“ We gave you all the light we could,” said she. “ You 
are yourself unkind, though you little think how much 
so, to come between us at this hour. There may be a 
sacred hour, even in carnival time.” 

In another state of mind, Kenyon could have been 
amused by the impulsiveness of this response, and a 
sort of vivacity that he had often noted in Miriam’s 
conversation. But he was conscious of a profound sad¬ 
ness in her tone, overpowering its momentary irritation, 
and assuring him that a pale, tear-stained face was 
hidden behind her mask. 

“ Forgive me ! ” said he. 

Donatello here extended his hand, — not that which 
was clasping Miriam’s, — and she, too, put her free one 
into the sculptor’s left; so that they were a linked circle 
of three, with many reminiscences and forebodings flash¬ 
ing through their hearts. Kenyon knew intuitively that 
these once familiar friends were parting with him, 
now. 

“ Farewell! ” they all three said, in the same breath. 


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL 199 

No sooner was the word spoken, than they loosed 
their hands; and the uproar of the carnival swept like 
a tempestuous sea over the spot, which they had included 
within their small circle of isolated feeling. 

By this interview, the sculptor had learned nothing 
in reference to Hilda; but he understood that he was to 
adhere to the instructions already received, and await a 
solution of the mystery in some mode that he could not 
yet anticipate. Passing his hands over his eyes, and 
looking about him, — for the event just described had 
made the scene even more dreamlike than before, — he 
now found himself approaching that broad piazza bor¬ 
dering on the Corso, which has for its central object the 
sculptured column of Antoninus. It was not far from 
this vicinity that Miriam had bid him wait. Struggling 
onward, as fast as the tide of merry-makers, setting 
strong against him, would permit, he was now beyond 
the Palazzo Colonna, and began to count the houses. 
The fifth was a palace, with a long front upon the Corso, 
and of stately height, but somewhat grim with age. 

Over its arched and pillared entrance, there was a 
balcony, richly hung with tapestry and damask, and 
tenanted, for the time, by a gentleman of venerable 
aspect, and a group of ladies. The white hair and 
whiskers of the former, and the winter-roses in his 
cheeks, had an English look; the ladies, too, showed a 
fair-haired, Saxon bloom, and seemed to taste the mirth 
of the carnival with the freshness of spectators to whom 
the scene was new. All the party, the old gentleman 
with grave earnestness, as if he were defending a ram¬ 
part, and his young companions with exuberance of frolic, 
showered confetti inexhaustibly upon the passers-by. 

In the rear of the balcony, a broad-brimmed, ecclesi¬ 
astical beaver was visible. An abbate, probably an ac¬ 
quaintance and cicerone of the English family, was sitting 
there, and enjoying the scene, though partially with¬ 
drawn from view, as the decorum of his order dictated. 

There seemed no better nor other course for Kenyon, 
than to keep watch at this appointed spot, waiting for 
whatever should happen next. Clasping his arm round 


200 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


a lamp-post, to prevent being carried away by the tur¬ 
bulent stream of wayfarers, he scrutinized every face, 
with the idea that some one of them might meet his 
eyes with a glance of intelligence. He looked at each 
mask, — harlequin, ape, bulbous-headed monster, or any¬ 
thing that was absurdest, — not knowing but that the 
messenger might come, even in such fantastic guise. 
Or, perhaps, one of those quaint figures, in the stately 
ruff, the cloak, tunic, and trunk-hose, of three centuries 
ago, might bring him tidings of Hilda, out of that long- 
past age. At times, his disquietude took a hopeful 
aspect; and he fancied that Hilda might come by, her 
own sweet self, in some shy disguise which the instinct 
of his love would be sure to penetrate. Or, she might 
be borne past on a triumphal car, like the one just now 
approaching, its slow-moving wheels encircled and 
spoked with foliage, and drawn by horses that were 
harnessed and wreathed with flowers. Being, at best, 
so far beyond the bounds of reasonable conjecture, he 
might anticipate the wildest event, or find either his 
hopes or fears disappointed in what appeared most 
probable. 

The old Englishman and his daughters, in the opposite 
balcony, must have seen something unutterably absurd in 
the sculptor’s deportment, poring into this whirlpool of 
nonsense so earnestly, in quest of what was to make his 
life dark or bright. Earnest people, who try to get a 
reality out of human existence, are necessarily absurd 
in the view of the revellers and masqueraders. At all 
events, after a good deal of mirth at the expense of his 
melancholy visage, the fair occupants of the balcony 
favored Kenyon with a salvo of confetti, which came 
rattling about him like a hail-storm. Looking up, in¬ 
stinctively, he was surprised to see the abbate in the 
background lean forward and give a courteous sign of 
recognition. 

It was the same old priest with whom he had seen 
Hilda, at the confessional; the same with whom he had 
talked of her disappearance, on meeting him in the street. 

Yet, whatever might be the reason, Kenyon did not 


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL 201 

now associate this ecclesiastical personage with the idea 
of Hilda. His eyes lighted on the old man, just for an 
instant, and then returned to the eddying throng of the 
Corso, on his minute scrutiny of which depended, for 
aught he knew, the sole chance of ever finding any trace 
of her.. There was, about this moment, a bustle on the 
other side of the street, the cause of which Kenyon did 
not see, nor exert himself to discover. A small party of 
soldiers or gendarmes appeared to be concerned in it; 
they were perhaps arresting some disorderly character, 
who under the influence of an extra flask of wine, might 
have reeled across the mystic limitation of carnival 
proprieties. 

The sculptor heard some people near him talking of 
the incident. 

“ That contadina, in a black mask, was a fine figure of 
a woman.” 

“ She was not amiss,” replied a female voice; “but 
her companion was far the handsomer figure of the two. 
Could they be really a peasant and a contadina, do you 
imagine ? ” 

“ No, no,” said the other. “ It is some frolic of the 
carnival, carried a little too far.” 

This conversation might have excited Kenyon’s inter¬ 
est; only that, just as the last words were spoken, he 
was hit by two missiles, both of a kind that were flying 
abundantly on that gay battle-field. One, we are ashamed 
to say, was a cauliflower, which, flung by a young man 
from a passing carriage, came with a prodigious thump 
against his shoulder; the other was a single rose-bud, so 
fresh that it seemed that moment gathered. It flew from 
the opposite balcony, smote gently on his lips, and fell 
into his hand. He looked upward, and beheld the face 
of his lost Hilda ! 

She was dressed in a white domino, and looked pale 
and bewildered, and yet full of tender joy. Moreover, 
there was a gleam of delicate mirthfulness in her eyes, 
which the sculptor had seen there only two or three times 
in the course of their acquaintance, but thought it the 
most bewitching and fairylike of all Hilda’s expressions. 


202 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


That soft, mirthful smile caused her to melt, as it were, 
into the wild frolic of the carnival, and become not so 
strange and alien to the scene, as her unexpected appa¬ 
rition must otherwise have made her. 

Meanwhile, the venerable Englishman and his daugh¬ 
ters were staring at poor Hilda in a way that proved 
them altogether astonished, as well as inexpressibly 
shocked, by her sudden intrusion into their private bal¬ 
cony. They looked — as, indeed, English people of 
respectability would, if an angel were to alight in their 
circle, without due introduction from somebody whom 
they knew, in the court above — they looked as if an 
unpardonable liberty had been taken, and a suitable 
apology must be made; after which, the intruder would 
be expected to withdraw. 

The abbate, however, drew the old gentleman aside, 
and whispered a few words that served to mollify him; 
he bestowed on Hilda a sufficiently benignant, though 
still a perplexed and questioning regard, and invited her, 
in dumb show, to put herself at her ease. 

But, whoever was in fault, our shy and gentle Hilda 
had dreamed of no intrusion. Whence she had come, or 
where she had been hidden, during this mysterious inter¬ 
val, we can but imperfectly surmise, and do not mean, 
at present, to make it a matter of formal explanation 
with the reader. It is better, perhaps, to fancy that she 
had been snatched away to a land of picture; that she 
had been straying with Claude in the golden light which 
he used to shed over his landscapes, but which he could 
never have beheld with his waking eyes, till he awoke in 
the better clime. We will imagine that, for the sake of 
the true simplicity with which she loved them, Hilda had 
been permitted, for a season, to converse with the great 
departed masters of the pencil, and behold the diviner 
works which they have painted in heavenly colors. Guido 
had shown her another portrait of Beatrice Cenci, done 
from the celestial life, in which that forlorn mystery of 
the earthly countenance was exchanged for a radiant joy. 
Perugino had allowed her a glimpse at his easel, on 
which she discerned what seemed a woman’s face, but so 


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL 203 

divine, by the very depth and softness of its womanhood, 
that a gush of happy tears blinded the maiden’s eyes, 
before she had time to look. Raphael had taken Hilda 
by the hand, — that fine forcible hand which Kenyon 
sculptured, — and drawn aside the curtain of gold-fringed 
cloud that hung before his latest masterpiece. On earth, 
Raphael painted the Transfiguration. What higher scene 
may he have since depicted, not from imagination, but 
as revealed to his actual sight! 

Neither will we retrace the steps by which she returned 
to the actual world. For the present be it enough to say 
that Hilda had been summoned forth from a secret place, 
and led we know not through what mysterious passages, 
to a point where the tumult of life burst suddenly upon 
her ears. She heard the tramp of footsteps, ,the rattle 
of wheels, and the mingled hum of a multitude of voices, 
with strains of music and loud laughter breaking through. 
Emerging into a great, gloomy hall, a curtain was drawn 
aside; she found herself gently propelled into an open 
balcony, whence she looked out upon the festal street, 
with gay tapestries flaunting over all the palace fronts, 
the windows thronged with merry faces, and a crowd of 
maskers rioting upon the pavement below. 

Immediately, she seemed to become a portion of the 
scene. Her pale, large-eyed, fragile beauty, her wonder¬ 
ing aspect, and bewildered grace, attracted the gaze of 
many; and there fell around her a shower of bouquets 
and bonbons — freshest blossoms and sweetest sugar¬ 
plums, sweets to the sweet — such as the revellers of the 
carnival reserve as tributes to especial loveliness. Hilda 
pressed her hand across her brow; she let her eyelids 
fall, and, lifting them again, looked through the gro¬ 
tesque and gorgeous show, the chaos of mad jollity, in 
quest of some object by which she might assure herself 
that the whole spectacle was not an illusion. 

Beneath the balcony, she recognized a familiar and 
fondly-remembered face. The spirit of the hour and 
the scene exercised its influence over her quick and sensi¬ 
tive nature; she caught up one of the rose-buds that 
had been showered upon her, and aimed it at the sculp- 


204 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


tor. It hit the mark; he turned his sad eyes upward, 
and there was Hilda, in whose gentle presence his own 
secret sorrow and the obtrusive uproar of the carnival 
alike died away from his perception. 

That night, the lamp beneath the Virgin’s shrine 
burned as brightly as if it had never been extinguished; 
and though the one faithful dove had gone to her mel¬ 
ancholy perch, she greeted Hilda rapturously the next 
morning, and summoned her less constant companions, 
whithersoever they had flown, to renew their homage. 


CHAPTER XXV 

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO 



HE gentle reader, we trust, would not thank us for 


A one of those minute elucidations, which are so 
tedious, and, after all, so unsatisfactory, in clearing up 
the romantic mysteries of a story. He is too wise to 
insist upon looking closely at the wrong side of the tapes¬ 
try, after the right one has been sufficiently displayed 
to him, woven with the best of the artist’s skill, and cun¬ 
ningly arranged with a view to the harmonious exhibition 
of its colors. If any brilliant, or beautiful, or even toler¬ 
able effect have been produced, this pattern of kindly 
readers will accept it at its worth, without tearing its 
web apart, with the idle purpose of discovering how the 
threads have been knit together; for the sagacity by 
which he is distinguished will long ago have taught him 
that any narrative of human action and adventure — 
whether we call it history or romance — is certain to be 
a fragile handiwork, more easily rent than mended. The 
actual experience of even the most ordinary life is full of 
events that never explain themselves, either as regards 
their origin or their tendency. 

It would be easy, from conversations which we have 
held with the sculptor, to suggest a clue to the mystery 
of Hilda’s disappearance; although as long as she re¬ 
mained in Italy there was a remarkable reserve in her 
communications upon this subject, even to her most 
intimate friends. Either a pledge of secrecy had been 
exacted, or a prudential motive warned her not to reveal 
the stratagems of a religious body, or the secret acts of a 
despotic government — whichever might be responsible 
in the present instance — while still within the scope of 
their jurisdiction. Possibly, she might not herself be 


20 6 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


fully aware what power had laid its grasp upon her per¬ 
son. What has chiefly perplexed us, however, among 
Hilda’s adventures, is the mode of her release, in which 
some inscrutable tyranny or other seemed to take part in 
the frolic of the carnival. We can only account for it, 
by supposing that the fitful and fantastic imagination 
of a woman — sportive, because she must otherwise be 
desperate — had arranged this incident, and made it 
the condition of a step which her conscience, or the 
conscience of another, required her to take. 

A few days after Hilda’s reappearance, she and the 
sculptor were straying together through the streets of 
Rome. Being deep in talk, it so happened that they 
found themselves near the majestic, pillared portico, and 
huge, black rotundity of the Pantheon. It stands almost 
at the central point of the labyrinthine intricacies of the 
modern city, and often presents itself before the bewil¬ 
dered stranger when he is in search of other objects. 
Hilda, looking up, proposed that they should enter. 

“ I never pass it without going in,” she said, “ to pay 
my homage at the tomb of Raphael.” 

“ Nor I,” said Kenyon, “ without stopping to admire 
the noblest edifice which the barbarism of the early ages, 
and the more barbarous pontiffs and princes of later 
ones, have spared to us.” 

They went in, accordingly, and stood in the free 
space of that great circle, around which are ranged the 
arched recesses and stately altars, formerly dedicated 
to heathen gods, but Christianized through twelve cen¬ 
turies gone by. The world has nothing else like the 
Pantheon. So grand it is, that the pasteboard statues 
over the lofty cornice do not disturb the effect, any 
more than the tin crowns and hearts, the dusty artificial 
flowers, and all manner of trumpery gewgaws, hanging 
at the saintly shrines. The rust and dinginess that 
have dimmed the precious marble on the walls; the 
pavement, with its great squares and rounds of porphyry 
and granite, cracked crosswise and in a hundred direc¬ 
tions, showing how roughly the troublesome ages have 
trampled here; the gray dome above, with its opening 


MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON 207 

to the sky, as if heaven were looking down into the 
interior of this place of worship, left unimpeded for 
prayers to ascend the more freely: all these things 
make an impression of solemnity, which Saint Peter’s 
itself fails to produce. 

“I think,” said the sculptor, “it is to the aperture in 
the dome — that great Eye, gazing heavenward — that 
the Pantheon owes the peculiarity of its effect. It is 
so heathenish, as it were — so unlike all the snugness of 
our modern civilization! Look, too, at the pavement 
directly beneath the open space! So much rain has 
fallen there, in the last two thousand years, that it is 
green with small, fine moss, such as grows over tomb¬ 
stones in a damp English churchyard.” 

“I like better,” replied Hilda, “to look at the bright, 
blue sky, roofing the edifice where the builders left it 
open. It is very delightful, in a breezy day, to see the 
masses of white cloud float over the opening, and then 
the sunshine fall through it again, fitfully, as it does now. 
Would it be any wonder if we were to see angels 
hovering there, partly in and partly out, with genial, 
heavenly faces, not intercepting the light, but only 
transmuting it into beautiful colors ? Look at that 
broad, golden beam—a sloping cataract of sunlight — 
which comes down from the aperture and rests upon 
the shrine, at the right hand of the entrance! ” 

“ There is a dusky picture over that altar,” observed 
the sculptor. “ Let us go and see if this strong illumi¬ 
nation brings out any merit in it.” 

Approaching the shrine, they found the picture little 
worth looking at, but could not forbear smiling, to see 
that a very plump and comfortable tabby-cat — whom 
we ourselves have often observed haunting the Pantheon 
— had established herself on the altar, in the genial 
sunbeam, and was fast asleep among the holy tapers. 
Their footsteps disturbing her, she awoke, raised her¬ 
self, and sat blinking in the sun, yet with a certain dig¬ 
nity and self-possession, as if conscious of representing 
a saint. 

“I presume,” remarked Kenyon, “that this is the 


208 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


first of the feline race that has ever set herself up as an 
object of worship, in the Pantheon or elsewhere, since 
the days of ancient Egypt. See; there is a peasant 
from the neighboring market, actually kneeling to her! 
She seems a gracious and benignant saint enough.” 

“ Do not make me laugh,” said Hilda, reproachfully, 
“ but help me to drive the creature away. It distresses 
me to see that poor man, or any human being, directing 
his prayers so much amiss.” 

“ Then, Hilda,” answered the sculptor, more seriously, 
“the only place in the Pantheon for you and me to 
kneel, is on the pavement beneath the central aperture. 
If we pray at a saint’s shrine, we shall give utterance 
to earthly wishes; but if we pray face to face with the 
Deity, we shall feel it impious to petition for aught that 
is narrow and selfish. Methinks, it is this that makes 
the Catholics so delight in the worship of saints; they 
can bring up all their little worldly wants and whims, 
their individualities, and human weaknesses, not as 
things to be repented of, but to be humored by the 
canonized humanity to which they pray. Indeed, it is 
very tempting! ” 

What Hilda might have answered must be left to 
conjecture; for as she turned from the shrine, her eyes 
were attracted to the figure of a female penitent, kneel¬ 
ing on the pavement just beneath the great central eye, 
in the very spot which Kenyon had designated as the 
only one whence prayers should ascend. The upturned 
face was invisible, behind a veil or mask, which formed 
a part of the garb. 

“It cannot be!” whispered Hilda, with emotion. 
“ No ; it cannot be ! ” 

“ What disturbs you ? ” asked Kenyon. “ Why do you 
tremble so ? ” 

“If it were possible,” she replied, “I should fancy 
that kneeling figure to be Miriam! ” 

“As you say, it is impossible,” rejoined the sculptor. 
“We know too well what has befallen both her and 
Donatello.” 

“ Yes; it is impossible! ” repeated Hilda. 


MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON 209 

Her voice was still tremulous, however, and she seemed 
unable to withdraw her attention from the kneeling 
figure. Suddenly, and as if the idea of Miriam had 
opened the whole volume of Hilda’s reminiscences, she 
put this question to the sculptor: — 

“ Was Donatello really a Faun ? ” 

“ If you had ever studied the pedigree of the far- 
descended heir of Monte Beni, as I did,” answered 
Kenyon, with an irrepressible smile, “ you would have 
retained few doubts on that point. Faun or not, he 
had a genial nature, which, had the rest of mankind 
been in accordance with it, would have made earth a 
paradise to our poor friend. It seems the moral of his 
story, that human beings of Donatello’s character, com¬ 
pounded especially for happiness, have no longer any 
business on earth, or elsewhere. Life has grown so 
sadly serious, that such men must change their nature, 
or else perish, like the antediluvian creatures, that re¬ 
quired, as the condition of their existence, a more sum¬ 
mer-like atmosphere than ours.” 

“ I will not accept your moral! ” replied the hopeful 
and happy-natured Hilda. 

“ Then here is another; take your choice ! ” said the 
sculptor, remembering what Miriam had recently sug¬ 
gested, in reference to the same point. “ He perpetrated 
a great crime; and his remorse, gnawing into his soul, 
has awakened it; developing a thousand high capabili¬ 
ties, moral and intellectual, which we never should have 
dreamed of asking for, within the scanty compass of the 
Donatello whom we knew.” 

“ I know not whether this is so,” said Hilda. “ But 
what then ? ” 

“ Here comes my perplexity,” continued Kenyon. 
“Sin has educated Donatello, and elevated him. Is 
sin, then — which we deem such a dreadful blackness 
in the universe — is it, like sorrow, merely an element 
of human education, through which we struggle to a 
higher and purer state than we could otherwise have 
attained ? Did Adam fall, that we might ultimately rise 
to a far loftier paradise than his ? ” 


210 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


“ Oh, hush! ” cried Hilda, shrinking from him with 
an expression of horror which wounded the poor, specu¬ 
lative sculptor to the soul. “ This is terrible; and I 
could weep for you, if you indeed believe it. Do not 
you perceive what a mockery your creed makes, not 
only of all religious sentiments, but of moral law ? and 
how it annuls and obliterates whatever precepts of 
Heaven are written deepest within us ? You have 
shocked me beyond words ! ” 

“ Forgive me, Hilda! ” exclaimed the sculptor, startled 
by her agitation ; “ I never did believe it! But the mind 
wanders wild and wide; and, so lonely as I live and 
work, I have neither polestar above, nor light of cottage- 
windows here below, to bring me home. Were you my 
guide, my counsellor, my inmost friend, with that white 
wisdom which clothes you as a celestial garment, all 
would go well. Oh, Hilda, guide me home ! ” 

“ We are both lonely; both far from home ! ” said 
Hilda, her eyes filling with tears. “ I am a poor, weak 
girl, and have no such wisdom as you fancy in me.” 

What further may have passed between these lovers, 
while standing before the pillared shrine, and the marble 
Madonna that marks Raphael’s tomb, whither they had 
now wandered, we are unable to record. But when the 
kneeling figure, beneath the open eye of the Pantheon 
arose, she looked towards the pair, and extended her 
hands with a gesture of benediction. Then they knew 
that it was Miriam. They suffered her to glide out of 
the portal, however, without a greeting; for those ex¬ 
tended hands, even while they blessed, seemed to repel, 
as if Miriam stood on the other side of a fathomless 
abyss, and warned them from its verge. 

So Kenyon won the gentle Hilda’s shy affection, and 
her consent to be his bride. Another hand must hence¬ 
forth trim the lamp before the Virgin’s shrine ; for Hilda 
was coming down from her old tower, to be herself en¬ 
shrined and worshipped as a household saint, in the light 
of her husband’s fireside. And, now that life had so 
much human promise in it, they resolved to go back to 
their own land; because the years, after all, have a kind 


MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON 211 


of emptiness, when we spend too many of them on a 
foreign shore. We defer the reality of life, in such cases, 
until a future moment, when we shall again breathe our 
native air ; but, by and by, there are no future moments; 
or, if we do return, we find that the native air has lost its 
invigorating quality, and that life has shifted its reality to 
the spot where we have deemed ourselves only temporary 
residents. Thus, between two countries, we have none 
at all, or only that little space of either, in which we 
finally lay down our discontented bones. It is wise, 
therefore, to come back betimes, or never. 

Before they quitted Rome, a bridal gift was laid on 
Hilda’s table. It was a bracelet, evidently of great cost, 
being composed of seven ancient Etruscan gems, dug 
out of seven sepulchres, and each one of them the signet 
of some princely personage, who had lived an immemo¬ 
rial time ago. Hilda remembered this precious ornament. 
It had been Miriam’s; and, once, with the exuberance 
of fancy that distinguished her, she had amused herself 
with telling a mythical and magic legend for each gem, 
comprising the imaginary adventures and catastrophe of 
its former wearer. Thus, the Etruscan bracelet became 
the connecting bond of a series of seven wondrous tales, 
all of which, as they were dug out of seven sepulchres, 
were characterized by a sevenfold sepulchral gloom; 
such as Miriam’s imagination, shadowed by her own 
misfortunes, was wont to fling over its most sportive 
flights. 

And now, happy as Hilda was, the bracelet brought 
the tears into her eyes, as being, in its entire circle, the 
symbol of as sad a mystery as any that Miriam had 
attached to the separate gems. For, what was Miriam’s 
life to be ? And where was Donatello ? But Hilda had 
a hopeful soul, and saw sunlight on the mountain-tops. 


212 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


CONCLUSION 

T HERE comes to the Author, from many readers of 
the foregoing pages, a demand for further elucida¬ 
tions respecting the mysteries of the story. 

He reluctantly avails himself of the opportunity af¬ 
forded by a new edition, to explain such incidents and 
passages as may have been left too much in the dark; 
reluctantly, he repeats, because the necessity makes him 
sensible that he can have succeeded but imperfectly, at 
best, in throwing about this Romance the kind of atmos¬ 
phere essential to the effect at which he aimed. 

He designed the story and the characters to bear, of 
course, a certain relation to human nature and human 
life, but still to be so artfully and airily removed from 
our mundane sphere, that some laws and proprieties of 
their own should be implicitly and insensibly acknowl¬ 
edged. 

The idea of the modern Faun, for example, loses all 
the poetry and beauty which the Author fancied in it, 
and becomes nothing better than a grotesque absurdity, 
if we bring it into the actual light of day. He had hoped 
to mystify this anomalous creature between the Real 
and the Fantastic, in such a manner that the reader’s 
sympathies might be excited to a certain pleasurable 
degree, without impelling him to ask how Cuvier would 
have classified poor Donatello, or to insist upon being 
told, in so many words, whether he had furry ears or no. 
As respects all who ask such questions, the book is, to 
that extent, a failure. 

Nevertheless, the Author fortunately has it in his 
power to throw light upon several matters in which 
some of his readers appear to feel an interest. To con¬ 
fess the truth, he was himself troubled with a curiosity 
similar to that which he has just deprecated on the part 
of his readers, and once took occasion to cross-examine 
his friends, Hilda and the sculptor, and to pry into 
several dark recesses of the story, with which they had 
heretofore imperfectly acquainted him. 


CONCLUSION 


213 

We three had climbed to the top of Saint Peter’s, and 
were looking down upon the Rome we were soon to 
leave, but which (having already sinned sufficiently in 
that way) it is not my purpose further to describe. It 
occurred to me, that, being so remote in the upper 
air, my friends might safely utter, here, the secrets 
which it would be perilous even to whisper, on lower 
earth. 

“ Hilda,” I began, “can you tell me the contents of 
that mysterious packet which Miriam intrusted to your 
charge, and which was addressed to Signore Luca Bar- 
boni, at the Palazzo Cenci ? ” 

“ I never had any further knowledge of it,” replied 
Hilda, “ nor felt it right to let myself be curious upon 
the subject.” 

“ As to its precise contents,” interposed Kenyon, “ it 
is impossible to speak. But Miriam, isolated as she 
seemed, had family connections in Rome, one of whom, 
there is reason to believe, occupied a position in the 
Papal government. 

“This Signore Luca Barboni was either the assumed 
name of the personage in question, or the medium of 
communication between that individual and Miriam. 
Now under such a government as that of Rome, it is 
obvious that Miriam’s privacy and isolated life could 
• only be maintained through the connivance and support 
of some influential person connected with the adminis¬ 
tration of affairs. Free and self-controlled as she 
appeared, her every movement was watched and inves¬ 
tigated far more thoroughly by the priestly rulers than 
by her dearest friends. 

“ Miriam, if I mistake not, had a purpose to with¬ 
draw herself from this irksome scrutiny, and to seek 
real obscurity in another land; and the packet, to be 
delivered long after her departure, contained a refer¬ 
ence to this design, besides certain family documents, 
which were to be imparted to her relative as from one 
dead and gone.” 

“ Yes, it is clear as a London fog,” I remarked. “ On 
this head no further elucidation can be desired. But 


2I 4 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


when Hilda went quietly to deliver the packet, why did 
she so mysteriously vanish ? ” 

“ You must recollect,” replied Kenyon, with a glance 
of friendly commiseration at my obtuseness, “ that Mir¬ 
iam had utterly disappeared, leaving no trace by which 
her whereabouts could be known. In the meantime, 
the municipal authorities had become aware of the mur¬ 
der of the Capuchin; and from many preceding circum¬ 
stances, such as his persecution of Miriam, they must 
have seen an obvious connection between herself and 
that tragical event. Furthermore, there is reason to 
believe, that Miriam was suspected of connection with 
some plot, or political intrigue, of which there may have 
been tokens in the packet. And when Hilda appeared, 
as the bearer of this missive, it was really quite a mat¬ 
ter of course, under a despotic government, that she 
should be detained.” 

“ Ah, quite a matter of course, as you say,” answered 
I. “ How excessively stupid in me not to have seen it 
sooner! But there are other riddles. On the night of 
the extinction of the lamp, you met Donatello in a peni¬ 
tent’s garb, and afterwards saw and spoke to Miriam, 
in a coach, with a gem glowing on her bosom. What 
was the business of these two guilty ones in Rome, and 
who was Miriam’s companion ? ” 

“ Who ! ” repeated Kenyon, “ why, her official relative, 
to be sure; and as to their business, Donatello’s still 
gnawing remorse had brought him hitherward, in spite 
of Miriam’s entreaties, and kept him lingering in the 
neighborhood of Rome, with the ultimate purpose of 
delivering himself up to justice. Hilda’s disappearance, 
which took place the day before, was known to them 
through a secret channel, and had brought them into 
the city, where Miriam, as I surmise, began to make 
arrangements, even then, for that sad frolic of the 
Carnival.” 

“And where was Hilda all that dreary time be¬ 
tween ? ” inquired I. 

“Where were you, Hilda?” asked Kenyon, smiling. 

Hilda threw her eyes on all sides, and seeing that 


CONCLUSION 


2I 5 


there was not even a bird of the air to fly away with 
the secret, nor any human being nearer than the loi¬ 
terers by the obelisk, in the piazza below, she told us 
about her mysterious abode. 

“ I was a prisoner in the Convent of the Sacre Cceur, 
in the Trinita de’ Monte,” said she, “ but in such kindly 
custody of pious maidens, and watched over by such a 
dear old priest, that — had it not been for one or 
two disturbing recollections, and also because I am 
a daughter of the Puritans — I could willingly have 
dwelt there forever. 

“ My entanglement with Miriam’s misfortunes, and 
the good Abbate’s mistaken hope of a proselyte, seem 
to me a sufficient clue to the whole mystery.” 

“ The atmosphere is getting delightfully lucid,” ob¬ 
served I, “ but there are one or two things that still 
puzzle me. Could you tell me — and it shall be kept a 
profound secret, I assure you — what were Miriam’s real 
name and rank, and precisely the nature of the troubles 
that led to all those direful consequences ? ” 

“ Is it possible that you need an answer to those ques¬ 
tions ? ” exclaimed Kenyon, with an aspect of vast sur¬ 
prise. “ Have you not even surmised Miriam’s name ? 
Think awhile, and you will assuredly remember it. If 
not, I congratulate you most sincerely; for it indicates 
that your feelings have never been harrowed by one 
of the most dreadful and mysterious events that have 
occurred within the present century ! ” 

“ Well,” resumed I, after an interval of deep consid¬ 
eration, “ I have but few things more to ask. Where, 
at this moment, is Donatello? ” 

“ The Castle of St. Angelo,” said Kenyon, sadly, turn¬ 
ing his face towards that sepulchral fortress, “ is no longer 
a prison; but there are others which have dungeons as 
deep, and in one of them, I fear, lies our poor Faun.” 

“ And why, then, is Miriam at large? ” I asked. 

“ Call it cruelty, if you like, not mercy,” answered 
Kenyon. “ But, after all, her crime lay merely in a 
glance. She did no murder ! ” 


THE MARBLE FAUN 


216 


“ Only one question more,” said I, with intense ear¬ 
nestness. “ Did Donatello’s ears resemble those of the 
Faun of Praxiteles ? ” 

“ I know, but may not tell,” replied Kenyon, smiling 
mysteriously. “ On that point, at all events, there shall 
be not one word of explanation.” 


Leamington, March 14, i860. 



























































































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